Template:M comp disc 2018 CSD 1(a)

If sparse, staccato-style drafting is your kind of thing — it is mine — it is never an encouraging sign when the first words in an agreement are “Unless otherwise defined in this Deed”.

Here, we think, this leaden proviso is to account for the tedious fact that a credit support deed is not a mere appendage to the ISDA Master Agreement, but its own independent legal construct, able to stand on its own two feet and makes its own way in the world, not tied to the apron strings of mother ISDA, whereas a credit support annex is forever a part of the ISDA Master Agreement with no ontological existence beyond its loving arms. So, that “defined terms in the ISDA apply here” follows as a matter of logic for an annex, but not a self-supporting, suffrage-enjoying, deed of the realm, even if it does — or should — still go without saying. It is said; so be it. Nobody — but a part inside every prose stylist — died.

In the 2018, there is a pitifully specific articulation of something else that should, but alas does not, go without saying, but it manages to refrain from explaining what it means by “transfer” — a pledge, of course, not really being a transfer.