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| So: I agree to lend you my car for ten quid, but before I let you have the keys, you must give proof you have insurance. The ten pounds is consideration; the insurance certificate is a [[condition precedent]]. | | So: I agree to lend you my car for ten quid, but before I let you have the keys, you must give proof you have insurance. The ten pounds is consideration; the insurance certificate is a [[condition precedent]]. |
| | | It reminds me of a story from the [[Jolly Contrarian]]’s youth. |
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| ===The South African credit-linked note and the misunderstood [[sw-æp]]===
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| It reminds me of a story from the [[Jolly Contrarian]]’s youth.
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| It was decades ago, a mild Friday evening in the infancy of the [[credit derivative|credit derivatives]] market. It was all to do with a secured [[note]], [[credit-linked note|credit-linked]] to the republic of South Africa. I had drafted it — elegantly, if I do say so myself — and faxed if off, as one did in those days, to our client, a giant investment bank, and the prospective purchaser. The day’s work done, I was putting my jacket on to leave for the weekend when the phone rang.
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| I turned on my heels and regarded it resentfully. Should I answer?
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| Valour got the better part of discretion, and I did. It turned out to be a partner from that famous derivatives firm<ref>Not famous. It was and, as far as I know, still is, a shipping and marine insurance specialist.</ref> Stephenson Harwood. He announced himself as the prospective client’s solicitor, and told me he had some comments on the [[swap]]. Only he pronounced it “[[sw-æp]]”, to rhyme with “crap”, and not “[[sw-ŏp]]”, to rhyme with chop — something that after [[Noel Edmonds]], you would think no self-respecting British child, let alone one who had matured into a [[derivatives]] whizz, would ever do.
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| In any case this chap sent in his mark-up of the, er, [[sw-æp]], and he had rather gone to town on it, in a manner indicating only a passing acquaintance with the derivatives market, but great expertise in the complications that arise when one transports goods by sea.
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| My supervising partner in those days was an excitable fellow<ref>''Highly'' excitable. To keep a lid on his blood pressure, he retired shortly thereafter and now runs a newsagent in Gillingham.</ref>. I confess it was with a guilty glee that I trotted around and dropped the comments — they were compendious as they were ill-informed — on his desk, the way an obstreperous child might drop a match into a canister of petrol. It had the anticipated effect. Whilst the young [[JC]] was patiently explaining this setback to our client, represented by a callow but quick young fellow from Dublin in his first year out from Trinity College.
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| “I have never been so outraged”, said my supervisor, his face a deep puce. “I have covered his draft with unprintable words! Obscenities! Words starting with “c” and “p” ...!”
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| There was the most exquisite pause before the young Irishman on the speakerphone interjected:
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| “[[Conditions precedent]]?”
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| {{egg}} | | {{egg}} |
| {{ref}} | | {{ref}} |