Double full stop: Difference between revisions

The [[double full stop]] — a fossil record indicating the insertion, and then removal, of a sentence that you suspect started, “[[for the avoidance of doubt]], ...” is unusually acute in its [[bathos]]. It says, “this mattered to me once, gravely, but now I am past caring. I hate you all. Just deliver me from this godforsaken project. Let me go. I don’t even want a [[tombstone]]. And ''closing dinner'' did you say? ''Bite'' me.”

This may, but does not have to, arise during the end game of a vigorously-negotiated [[deal]]. But regulators are prone to it, too. A celebrated example comes from the [[Cayman Islands Monetary Authority]]’s recent, bished, attempt to update its rules on [[asset segregation]] for [[investment fund]]s. Yes, yes: I know what you are thinking: ''be still, my beating heart.'' But ride along with us for a while.

So far, so unobjectionable. But it did not take long for things to take a darker turn. Just a few paragraphs further on, the rules provided, almost by way of parenthetical note:

We do not need to pause for long to observe that, on its face, this bears scant relation to the “overriding goal” of Rule 5.2, which says nothing of the kind. Rule 5.2 asks custodians not to commingle their clients’ assets with their own; an entirely workaday affordance that, to any half-competent [[trust and agency professional]], would hardly need being said. But within a couple of paragraphs, our [[CIMA]] ''ingénue'' overreaches this tepid lagoon, and her scanty mandate, and seems to pry into the famously private affairs of her [[hedge fund]] constituents. Rule 5.5 seems to bar one such as a [[prime broker]] from ''[[Rehypothecation|rehypothecating]]'' a Cayman fund’s assets. In a business as dependent on [[margin lending]] as is the [[Cayman Islands]]’ [[hedge fund]] industry, this is quite the intrusive bolt from the blue. The industry, and its divers professional advisers, rose up as one. “What,” it enquired, “on ''Earth'' do you think you are playing at?”

Of course, this was not what [[CIMA]] meant at all, and there followed a hasty “[[reverse ferret]]”. But in that fascinating way of modern life, wherein it will no longer do to just admit to a cock-up and fix it properly,websites were updated, correspondence reissued, and the guidance was ''clarified''. “For the purposes of Rule 5.5,” the [[amended]] circular carried on, “the following shall not in itself, constitute the financing of the Service Providers own operations:

 

 

Thus, a contractually binding right of [[rehypothecation]], provided it is disclosed, is okay. To reach this conclusion, one must assemble the logical components of Rules 5.5, 5.6 and 5.6.5 into a single juridical proposition. It runs like so: