Change in law

The basic principles of contract →Go uptown Formation: capacity and authority · representation · misrepresentation · offer · acceptance · consideration · intention to create legal relations · agreement to agree · privity of contract oral vs written contract · principal · agent Interpretation and change: governing law · mistake · implied term · amendment · assignment · novation Performance: force majeure · promise · waiver · warranty · covenant · sovereign immunity · illegality · severability · good faith · commercially reasonable manner · commercial imperative · indemnity · guarantee Breach: breach · repudiation · causation · remoteness of damage · direct loss · consequential loss · foreseeability · damages · contractual negligence · process agent Remedies: damages · adequacy of damages ·equitable remedies · injunction · specific performance · limited recourse · rescission · estoppel · concurrent liability Not contracts: Restitution — quasi-contract — quasi-agency Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Contract Tort Restitution Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

You might want, sometimes, to capture the effect of a change in law that has not yet happened, indeed might not happen, but could happen, and if it did happen, would — when it happened — verily bugger up the careful figures you constructed under your derivatives transaction.

Examples that leap to mind: If you have a forward transaction to buy emissions allowances for April 2026, and the EU announces a plan to disestablish the EU ETS in April 2025 — meaning that you really want to get your hands on the Allowance and surrender them, or sell them to someone else who wants to surrender them, now. The closer you get to the day that becomes law, the less valuable the Allowances are, as the need to surrender them falls. So that prospective change is important immediately — even before it has become official.

So here is some language for that:

The publication or announcement by [Regulator] of any proposal to change the law or regulation or its interpretation that, if implemented would have the effect, before the [Termination Date], of [here, describe your apocalyptic scenario].