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If you are a [[broker-dealer]], your basic terms for handling orders and stuff. The theory is that are mostly harmless, and [[broker]]s bang them out at the inception of the relationship, if the client even notices them they get stuck in a draw and no-one ever thinks about them again. | {{a|broker|}}If you are a [[broker-dealer]], your basic terms for handling orders and stuff. The theory is that [[TOB]]s are mostly harmless — only 97 pages long, of course — and [[broker]]s bang them out at the inception of the relationship expecting that, if the client even notices them at all, they get stuck in a draw and no-one ever thinks about them again. The last thing anyone wants is for the client to send the TOBs to legal. | ||
This can happen. Indeed, a client’s reaction to its broker’s [[terms of business]] is a pretty good gauge of how badly in need of streamlining its [[legal]] department is. In these austere times it is quite a comfort to see that cost cutting hasn’t hit all of the [[mediocre lawyer]]’s favourite habitats. | |||
In | In the {{tag|US}}, [[broker]]s tend not to have [[TOB]]s because the market relies on the basic terms of the [[Uniform Commercial Code]]. | ||
In EMEA, [[broker]]s do tend to have written [[terms of business]], if for no other reason because [[MiFID]] 2 imposes quite a lot of basic requirements that they need to memorialise. | |||
Each time [[ESMA]] updates [[MiFID]] dear old [[Simmons & Simmons]] kicks off a really hilarious<ref>Like ''really'' hilarious. I can’t tell you how fun it is.</ref> game where they gee their institutional [[asset manager]] clients up into a frenzy about how outrageous their [[broker]]s’ [[terms of business]] are, and present them with a nineteen page generic letter of rebuttal. This precipitates a 9 month attritional paper war which is redolent of — and about as much of a waste of time, effort and young lives as — the Belgian trenches in World War I. | |||
In fairness, many [[broker]]s don't help themselves with their completely absurd [[terms of business]]. The longer ones check in at something like 80 pages. The shortest ones are three or four. | |||
And all of this goes before we even get into arguments about whether we need a [[sovereign immunity]] waiver clause or to appoint a [[process agent]]. | |||
Hold these truths as self-evident: | Hold these truths as self-evident: | ||
*No-one has ever sued, or been sued, on the basis of [[terms of business]]. | *No-one has ever sued, or been sued, on the basis of [[terms of business]]. | ||
*No-one, other than [[legal]] has ever even read the goddamn terms of business. | |||
{ | {{ref}} |