The Jolly Contrarian on ISDA

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jollycontrarian.substack.com By now I hope the netting problem is clear: regulations require each dealer to obtain lengthy legal opinions for every master agreement in its portfolio. A full service broker dealer may have hundreds of thousands, across scores of jurisdictions. Swap, stock lending, repo, and prime services master agreement...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jollycontrarian.substack.com Little Swap-a-Thing Mama said, “Now, Eggfried dear:I must go out and leave you here. But mind now, Eggie, what I say:Don’t swap your things while I’m away. The fearsome cherry-picker swingsFor little boys who swap their things. And ’ere they dream what he’s aboutHe’ll take his great big plucker outAnd swipe...

Banca Valle del SiliconeNon era Lorenzo MediciIo ho cedole fissateTu le hai variateVogliamo la coperturaFissiamo la procedura — Otto Büchstein , Eggfried When we left off last time Silicon Valley Bank had collapsed. It burned through its “available for sale” portfolio of financial assets — mainly long dated U.S. treasury notes — to meet the surge in withdrawals it suffered when, in early 2023, the...

This is the first chapter in a new series about close-out netting , and the tiresome, hideous problem of close-out netting opinions . If you haven’t already, you might want to check out the introductory prologue, already released. It is here . This is chapter one: we are still in scene-setting mode. Before we get started with the really boring stuff it is worth getting down to brass tacks and aski...

You’re all here for eternity which, I hardly need tell you, is a heck of a long time. —Rowan Atkinson, Welcome to Hell Every now and then I field an unsolicited offer from someone to help me with “search engine optimisation”. This person says something along the following lines: “In the competitition for attention on the world wide web, getting to the top of the google search results is more impor...

This is part three of a multi-part series about the deep and largely apocryphal history of collateralised lending. Here are parts 1 and 2 . For those who can’t be bothered to read parts 1 and 2, but still want to read part 3 — I mean, suit yourself — or who have read them but just forgot, here is a recap. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive the best posts and support this struggling arti...

Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is part 2 of an essay. Here is variation margin: deep history part 1 . There will be a third. Refresher Prompted by the simple question “why do Americans prefer collateral pledges and Brits prefer title transfer collateral?” we were talking last time about the difference, in the JC’s argot, between “collateral” on one hand and...

A case concerning a snippy letter from a lawyer who should have known better to another one, who did , is an odd departure point for an excursion into without prejudice , but here we are. This is what I would call an “Albert Haddock” case. Albert Haddock was A. P. Herbert ’s ornery civilian litigant, always getting himself in trouble, or up the nose of the authority, presenting negotiable cows to...

In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order — butThe phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet againAs endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essences of heaven,The moisture of the Earth, the powers of the sun and the moonAll worked upon a certain rock, old as creation, and it becameMagically fertile. That first e...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jollycontrarian.substack.com This is going to be quite the epistolic journey. Like a Dickens novel designed for people with no taste in literature and an unusually high threshold for pain. I have started to refresh the CSA pages. As I go I am going to put out newsletters and podcasts. Here is the first once. Premium subscribers: the pre...

We’re no strangers to levyYou know withholding rules and so do I:Some tax commitment’s what I’m thinking ofYou wouldn’t get this from any other guy. I just wanna say I’m imputating Gotta make you understand: Never gonna gross you up Never gonna write you downNever gonna reach around and withhold youNever gonna make you cryNever gonn’ indemnify What they can’t recharacterise can’t hurt you. We’ve k...

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