ISDA ®

Founded in 1996 DDL’s primary objective was to fill a gap in the market for temporary ISDA negotiators. Since that time we have undertaken a large number of consultancy assignments and over the past twelve years 18 of the top 20 banks in the world have taken at least one of our services. ISDA Negotiation is done by our own experienced staff members who work on a temporary contract basis on behalf of our clients, helping in a range of different situations including holiday cover, staff shortage and prolonged staff illness. Our ISDA Consultancy contracts performed over the years for our clients include audit of agreements, template composition and establishing documentation tracking systems. If you are looking for some ISDA training, we offer web-based distance learning courses on a range of different subjects including the 1992 and 2002 ISDA ® Master Agreements and Credit Support Annexes. Our credit derivatives online training courses include a foundation course on credit derivatives products and their legal and credit issues plus a summary of recent developments in the market. A more advanced course covers credit derivatives indices, tranched indices, structured products and their documentation. Finally, outside ISDA topics, we also provide courses on repo and securities lending documentation. Training is modular in all cases. Progress in our courses is tested by multiple choice questions, and if you successfully answer the questions you are able to proceed; otherwise you have to return to the text and refresh your knowledge before attempting the question again.

ISDA Master

In 2003 DDL’s Managing Director published a book that was a practical guide for people who wanted to improve their ISDA negotiation skills. The book contains descriptions of main derivatives products, plus English and US legal issues, credit issues and operational issues all in relation to the ISDA Master Agreements. It also includes a sample Schedule with commentary and variants, and the book is useful for training purposes for lawyers, credit officers, regulators and pretty much anyone who wants to become better at master agreement negotiation. This book is very useful for many different businesses and organisations to have as a reference, but if you are looking for specific training, such as CDS training, our online courses provide accelerated learning. They are competitively priced compared to external courses and you can learn at your own pace as you are given a four month timescale to complete them. The GMRA 2000 and the GMSLA 2000 and the GMSLA 2010 are documents that many people are required to know, which is why we have designed courses specifically for these repo and securities lending agreements and also covering the uses of these products. We also have an ISDA CSA course under English and New York Law. With all our courses a negotiation exercise is offered for completion so that people consolidate their knowledge and apply it practically.

ISDA Negotiation and Consultancy

If your business needs to transfer derivatives booked by an overseas office to your Head Office or you need a market survey undertaken or you want to put in place a formal negotiation policy manual, our ISDA consultancy service would be very relevant for you. For many years we have been performing such consultancy contracts and a wide variety of other ISDA related work for our clients and we are always happy to discuss your specific requirements. In addition, since 1999, we have offered online training services covering master agreements for OTC derivatives and securities. We have a range of sample courses, any of which can be adapted to your own needs. For example if you would like an introduction to Repo Documentation to get an understanding of how this works, some typical uses of repo, the range of different repo products in the market and legal and risk issues, then we can create a course to cover your particular requirements. In terms of OTC derivative products we can negotiate master and collateral documentation and provide fully qualified professional ISDA negotiators on a contract basis. Contracts can last a few days or several months and can be undertaken at your offices or off site. We can work on an hourly rate basis or at a fixed price. Our training programmes are also worth considering and will help your business grow.

Extensive Support

If you are in need of some CDS training then our foundation online course on credit derivatives products and their legal and credit issues and our advanced course on credit derivative indices and structured credit derivative products would be beneficial to you. These courses take between 30 to 40 hours each to complete and at the end of these derivatives online training courses you can take a practical test in the form of a confirmation exercise. Once completed, you will be appraised by the Course Director who will send you a model answer and certificate. For anyone who is new to ISDA negotiation or looking for a career change into the field of ISDA documentation and cannot afford to attend external training courses, the online courses we have on the two ISDA Master Agreements are ideal. This training involves reviewing the main body of the 1992 or 2002 Agreement clause by clause and is presented in modular form and also includes legal and credit issues relating to these master agreements. As with the ISDA CSA training, the courses provide full commentary in clear and concise English so you should have no trouble following the details presented. All our courses are designed so that people can undertake them from anywhere, on a distance learning basis. Another advantage, for example with the GMRA 2000 course, is the expert tuition you get from a well-known author in this field. All end of course exercises are generally well received as they also give candidates a practical opportunity to apply their new knowledge across the range of the ISDA, CSA, GMRA and GMSLA documentation.

Professional Services

Whether your business requires negotiation, training, ISDA consultancy or recruitment in the field of securities and OTC derivatives documentation we represent a one stop service. We offer complete confidentiality, independence as we are not owned by any other group, a willingness to work globally and to be flexible in matching your requirements with our ISDA Master services and a competitive price for an excellent level of service. If you are in need of some experienced negotiators on a temporary contract, then we can help. The products our ISDA negotiators cover are foreign exchange, interest rate swaps, currency swaps, all kinds of options, credit derivatives, equity derivatives and commodity derivatives. We hope that our extensive range of training courses will be suitable for most people’s needs and we have a list of all our courses especially on ISDA training on one easy to follow page on our website. Each course has a brief overview beside it, so visitors to the website can more easily find the course they need. Doubtless you can find external courses similar to the in-house courses we offer, but with us you are able to undertake them in your offices, so delegates can ask as many questions as they like and all the tuition is given by an expert at a competitive price. This is true whether you want OTC derivatives training for example including the legal aspects of credit derivatives or whether you are credit officers or corporate lenders needing some basic master agreement training.

Here to help you help yourself

We know the importance of understanding fully the nuances of Credit Support Annexes which is why we have set up an online distance learning course covering a range of issues under English and New York law. In addition to reviewing the ISDA CSA we also provide commentaries on provisions that have been added to Paragraph 11 and Paragraph 13 of the English and New York Law CSAs respectively. Other broader issues that are covered in the course include risk matters, legal issues and collateral management procedures. Potential clients who will benefit from the ISDA Credit Support Annex course include those who need to have a general knowledge of it but only negotiate this documentation now and again. We have tried to describe each of our courses in as much detail as possible but if you want to experience a sample of a course, e.g. the Securities Lending and GMSLA 2000 course, then we have included a short demo with extracts from the course and some multiple choice questions under each subject heading. Once the appropriate courses, e.g. the GMRA have been taken by members of your staff they should be able to undertake negotiations internally but in the meantime our ISDA negotiation team are standing by to help you on a temporary contract basis. Alternatively you can contact us if you need some consultancy work on a range of issues including formulation of Schedules for the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement.

Related Link:

• What is ISDA?