Parties to an ISDA Master Agreement

It is important that the Master Agreement correctly identifies the party with whom Transactions will be entered into:

1. •

   in complex corporate organisations it is easy to mistake similarly named entities;

2. •

   the entity named must be in an acceptable jurisdiction and have the requisite authorities and regulatory approvals to transact;

3. •

   the name of the party to the Master Agreement must match that on any existing Transactions which it is intended to govern

Where the Counterparty is an entity in a different jurisdiction, legal due diligence on that party is required, using the ISDA netting legal opinions as a starting point (see Practice Note: ISDA netting legal opinions), to ensure that the contract being agreed is fully enforceable in that jurisdiction.

Dating the Master Agreement and schedule

Common practice in the derivatives markets is for the entry into Transactions to be made ahead of the execution of a Master Agreement. As such, the Master Agreement which intends to capture all outstanding transactions needs to use the