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Published date: 8 January 2018

Brexit and the ISDA Master Agreement

SDA Chief Executive Officer Scott O’Malia offers informal comments on important derivatives issues in derivatiViews, reflecting ISDA’s long-held commitment to making the market safer and more efficient.

It’s one of the more complex, technical issues related to Brexit, but it’s one that has focused the minds of derivatives professionals since the 2016 referendum result: what does the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU) mean for use of the English law ISDA Master Agreement?

At this point, we don’t have enough information to say for sure. If an agreement is reached between the EU and UK that preserves certain aspects of the current legal framework – for example, the automatic recognition of court judgements – then possibly not much. If there’s no agreement, then that automatic recognition between the EU and UK would fall away post-Brexit. Some firms in the EU and European economic area (EEA) may want to retain the convenience of automatic recognition across the EU/EE