Transaction - 1992 ISDA Provision

1992 ISDA Master Agreement A Jolly Contrarian owner’s manual™ preamble in a Nutshell™ The JC’s Nutshell™ summaries are moving to the subscription-only ninja tier. For the cost of ½ a weekly 🍺 you can get them here. Sign up at Substack. preamble in all its glory (Multicurrency — Cross Border) ISDA International Swap Dealers Association, Inc. MASTER AGREEMENT dated as of ...................................... [SPECIFY] and [SPECIFY] have entered and/or anticipate entering into one or more transactions (each a “Transaction”) that are or will be governed by this Master Agreement, which includes the schedule (the “Schedule”), and the documents and other confirming evidence (each a “Confirmation”) exchanged between the parties confirming those Transactions. Accordingly, the parties agree as follows: — edit Related agreements and comparisons Related Agreements Click here for the text of Section preamble in the 2002 ISDA Comparisons Template:Isdadiff preamble Resources and Navigation This provision in the 2002 Resources Wikitext | Nutshell wikitext | 2002 ISDA wikitext | 2002 vs 1992 Showdown | 2006 ISDA Definitions | 2008 ISDA Navigation Preamble | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 Events of Default: 5(a)(i) Failure to Pay or Deliver • 5(a)(ii) Breach of Agreement • 5(a)(iii) Credit Support Default • 5(a)(iv) Misrepresentation • 5(a)(v) Default Under Specified Transaction • 5(a)(vi) Cross Default • 5(a)(vii) Bankruptcy • 5(a)(viii) Merger Without Assumption • Termination Events: 5(b)(i) Illegality • 5(b)(ii) Tax Event • 5(b)(iii) Tax Event Upon Merger • 5(b)(iv) Credit Event Upon Merger • 5(b)(v) Additional Termination Event • Index: Click ᐅ to expand: 2002 ISDA - Premium 1992 ISDA - Premium 1992 ISDA Premium version of this page

Overview

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Like all good stories, the ISDA starts with a Preamble. Everyone, once, stares at that gnomic title and thinks, “okay, what the hell is this all about?”

Well, step this way, young padawan. Step into this rabbithole. A fellow called Gerald asked a callow young contrarian to look at an aye-ess-dee-aye once, in about 1995, and — well, here we all are, folks. Honestly, if I had known how much time I was going to spend with the damn thing I would have paid a lot more attention in the first place.

A word on industry associations

ISDA, who publishes the ISDA, is the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Those with a keen eye will note that, some time between 1992 and 2002, it rebranded from the “International Swap Dealers Associations, Inc.” — interesting plural, that, but in any case an outwardly sell-side outfit — to the more neutral-sounding “International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc.”: singular, at the same time more unitary and more inclusive sounding, but still in spirit the same old ISDA, stake-held predominantly by the largest broker-dealers on the face of the Earth. It may have aspirations to conquer the world but for now ISDA remains a “dealer-community” association.

As we note elsewhere, there is typically a “sell-side” broker and a “buy-side” end user to an ISDA Master Agreement.

These days the “buy-side lobby” is a lot bigger, more organised and better represented than it used to be, with AIMA (the Alternative Investment Management Association), EFAMA (the European Fund and Asset Management Association, the MFA (the Managed Funds Association), (not to be confused, by the way, with the Fund Management Association of Kenya) and the IA (the Investment Association), representing their interests.

The preamble

The preamble is just the loosener before things get properly going, and there is not a lot to see. It has not really changed a lot between the 1992 ISDA and the 2002 ISDA (nor indeed, from the 1987 ISDA, except that the Single Agreement clause got promoted from a casual remark during the warm-up, in the 1987 ISDA, to the first searching delivery of the first over.

Summary

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The preamble, which talks in somewhat laboured terms about the architecture of the ISDA contract, is the only place in the ISDA Master Agreement where the concept of the “Transaction” — being the actual swaps you put on under one of these confounded agreements — is defined.

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• The JC’s famous Nutshell™ summary of this clause

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See also

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