US attorney

I may seem to have a peculiar aversion to these people, but only when considered collectively. Individually they are all very nice people, and as long as you don’t get them on the subject of US Regulation or market practice, perfectly agreeable company, especially after a few snifters.

But they — and the institutions that have shaped them and which they comprise — have come up with some of the most confounded gouts of articulated of nonsense ever to don a pair of stilts: Things like:

• Rehypothecation: The art of giving away something you do not have;
• The impossibility of netting ERISA funds.
• Gross negligence

Cultural imperialism

We Brits are hardly ones to throw stones, but US attorneys have a tendency to suppose everyone knows about their jurisdiction, is in awe of it, and will have no objection to submitting to it. Every now and then you come across a counterparty in some far-flung backwater (continental Europe, for example) who expresses bafflement or even affrontery at the thought of subjugating itself to the law of the Americans. That this might happen takes some Americans by surprise. Then again, the fact it takes some Americans by surprise, takes everyone else by surprise. It is a fruitless task trying to get the bottom of who is most justifiably surprised but, for the record, it’s us.

See also

• Mediocre lawyer
• Market practice
• Doctrine of precedent

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