A Practical Guide to the 2016 ISDA Credit Support Annexes For Variation Margin under English and New York Law

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis many regulatory reforms were made. One of these was more frequent revaluation of OTC derivatives risk exposure and related margining. Regulators now expect this to be addressed every business day.

Variation margin relates to collateral used to cover changes in OTC derivatives mark to market risk exposure and such collateral is normally cash in major currencies and/or highly rated government bonds.

In April 2016 the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) published two Credit Support Annexes for Variation Margin under English and New York Law in readiness for new regulations which were implemented in the USA in September 2016 and in the European Union early in 2017.

A Practical Guide to the 2016 ISDA® Credit Support Annexes For Variation Margin under English and New York Law is the essential book for all who need to know about the new detailed regulations for margining in the European Union and the USA and most of all need to understand the contents of these two credit support annexes so that they can negotiate them safely and confidently.

The book is written by two of the world’s leading commentators on the subject, Paul C. Harding and Abigail J. Harding, and its coverage is comprehensive.

This first edition principally offers readers a detailed guide to these two credit support annexes through a clause-by-clause commentary on each of them. This commentary is written in clear English for a good, swift understanding of the implications of each provision.

The full texts of each credit support annex are reproduced in the appendices with the kind permission of ISDA.

As well as the commentary mentioned above, the book also contains chapters on the causes of the global financial crisis and the detailed regulatory response to them and the most recent developments in the OTC derivatives markets including ways the “too big to fail” problem has been addressed, MiFID II and the implications of BREXIT as far as they are currently known.

This one-stop book is principally aimed at lawyers and paralegals who need to negotiate these two new credit support annexes. Other professionals in the European and US OTC derivatives markets will also find this book useful. These could include traders, credit officers and regulators as well as academics specialising in collateralisation. Such professionals may work for commercial or investment banks, law firms, treasury units, collateral departments, central banks, pension funds and fund managers. Such is the broad potential appeal of this must-have book which caters for the novice and seasoned negotiator alike.