Template:M summ 2016 CSA 1(b)

Covered Transaction: As a concept, “Covered Transaction” only arrived in the 2016 VM CSA, in Paragraph 1(b).

Under the 1995 CSA, the neatest way of describing whether a given set of Transactions is covered or not is to say something like:

“[SPECIFY] Transactions will [not] be relevant for purposes of determining “Exposure” under the 1995 CSA.”

Yes, the drafting’s magic, isn’t it?

In the year of our Lord 2016, it is gratifying to see that the good people of ISDA and their friends, relations, cherubim and seraphin, gog and magog etc., are all still as fearful of the language they learned at their mothers' knees as ever. “If any” makes four appearances in an eight line clause which doesn’t say much in the first place.

But what does it mean?

This “Other CSA” talk has in mind those who, in 2016, wished to “grandfather” Transactions which were already live when the regulatory margin obligations came into force, but which therefore preceded it and were out of scope for it.

Cue a monstrously painful dual-CSA regime where new transactions were margined under a new, regulatory margin-compliant 2016 VM CSA, and old ones were allowed to roll off on the clapped-out (but somehow better, right?) “other” 1995 CSA.

No doubt this made sound commercial sense in 2016. But a few years later, for all except those with 30-year inflation swaps on the books, all this “Other CSA” chat is just barnacle-encrusted confusion for everyone.