Template:M summ GMSLA 9

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Mini close-out

This is the fabled mini close-out provision of the 2010 GMSLA. Mini close-out is the method of terminating an individual Loan under a 2010 GMSLA or an 1995 OSLA where there is a settlement failure without actually closing out the whole agreement. It applies therefore to a failure to return equivalent securities or equivalent collateral — these can be a function of market dislocations, upstream counterparty failures and liquidity events affecting the asset in question, but not to the failure to deliver collateral in the first place, seeing as if one kind of collateral is not available, it is in the Borrower’s gift to deliver something else that meets eligibility criteria, so its failure to pony up collateral always looks like a credit failure and will count as an Event of Default.

Non-affected party’s option

Note that mini close-out is the non-affected party’s option: If a Borrower, on terminating a Loan, cannot then redeliver the borrowed Securities (because of an upstream failure), it cannot force a mini close-out.

Failure to return Collateral or Securities is not an Event of Default. What is then?

Noting the exception for redelivery of Equivalent Securities or Collateral,[1] the failure to pay or deliver Events of Default under the 2010 GMSLA are:

GMSLA Netting

Since prudential requirements to have netting opinions do not apply within single transactions, one does not need a mini close-out provision to net within transactions under a GMSLA. That happens as of right. Therefore if, as is often the case, your loan portfolio is all the “same way round” — if you are borrowing from, but never lending to, a lender in a gross jurisdiction, then netting doesn’t really do anything for you. Your problem will be your collateral haircut, for which you will be an unsecured creditor of the lender. To fix this, a pledge GMSLA is what you are looking for.

Odd spot

See the peculiar impact mini-closeout has on Default Under Specified Transaction under the ISDA Master Agreement.

  1. See 9.1(b) and 9.2(b).
  2. For a jauntily metaphysical examination of the nature of hard cold folding green stuff — why it is, by nature, profoundly different to any other financial instrument, see our article on cash.
  3. From those assets that meet the eligibility criteria in the Schedule; moral of story: don’t allow yourself to be too tightly constrained on eligibility criteria.