Template:M comp disc 1992 ISDA Specified Transaction

DUST has been expanded in five significant ways by the 2002 ISDA:

• Mini-closeout carveout: Defaults require the acceleration of just the Specified Transaction in question (for general defaults) but off all outstanding transactions under the relevant master agreement (for delivery defaults). This change was made with mini-close-out under repos and stock loans in mind — a concept which the stock loan market invented after the 1992 ISDA was published, so you can’t really blame ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ for overlooking it at first — where delivery failures under are common and do not of themselves indicate weakness in the Defaulting Party’s creditworthiness.
• Credit support failures covered: DUST under the 2002 ISDA can be triggered by default under a credit support arrangement relating to a Specified Transaction. These weren’t included for the 1992 ISDA DUST.
• Shortened cure period: The cure period for a failure to make a final or early termination payment ona Specified Transaction has been reduced from three days to one.
• Repudiation evidence: Repudiation was modified in two significant ways:

• The phrase “or challenges the validity of” was added after “disaffirms, disclaims, repudiates or rejects” to reduce ambiguity as to whether a party’s action constitutes a repudiation; and
• to stiffen the criteria for something to count as a repudiation so as to require written evidence from the repudiating party of its extended middle finger. This is really an articulation of common sense, for it would be a brave risk officer indeed who closed out an ISDA Master Agreement based on an oral communication, or the proverbial extended middle finger, for which she could not subsequently produce in fairly compelling evidence. But still.

• Widened definition of Specified Transaction: The “Specified Transaction” concept has been broadened to include additional transaction types such as repos, and to include a catchall clause designed to include any future derivative products that have not been thought of yet.

The mini closeout point, as we discuss in the commentary below, is technically correct but should have led to a simplification of the DUST provision, rather than a convolution of it. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right: like that was ever going to happen.