Template:M summ 2002 ISDA 2(b)

ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ phoning it in, I’m obliged to say, and not minded to make any better a job of it when given the opportunity in 2002.

One can (and — cough — does) accuse finance lawyers of a yen for over-determinism in their drafting: no contingency, however remote or commercially obtuse, is left unaddressed, for fear of the consequences should it come about and the parties not find it in themselves to act like sentient adults and figure it out between them.

And what happens if the recipient makes a “reasonable objection”, and for that matter what could such a “reasonable objection” conceivably be?

Who can say?

ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ got to the edge of the cliff — it tacitly realises your counterparty might do something stupid, like changing its address for notices to a rural delivery run off the grid in the Sudan — but couldn’t be bothered to dream up a way out if it does.

Yet, curiously, in almost thirty years the Queen’s Bench Division has not been called on to arbitrate on who should give way in the event of such an impasse.

Odd, that.