The Brief:

Since 1997 DDL has regularly negotiated batches of ISDA Master Agreements on behalf of various banks.

Typically these have involved 20-30 ISDA Master Agreements and Credit Support Annexes (straightforward and complex) which needed to be negotiated within a 3-4 month timescale. The client's staff normally but not always negotiated the more urgent Agreements.

The Solution:

DDL typically undertakes the process from start to finish including checking contact details direct with the counterparties before sending a draft Schedule, familarising itself with the clients' policies, negotiating, regularly chasing counterparties (where necessary) and reporting progress weekly in a format showing hours expended and cost to date for each negotiation.

Clients are usually invoiced monthly. 

The Result:

From its experience DDL estimates that a typical ISDA Master Agreement takes 5 hours (net) to negotiate and a Credit Support Annex about the same time largely due to the parties' relatively entrenched positions on some matters.

DDL normally charges on an hourly basis for this work. Limits per negotiation can be built into the engagement letter between DDL and the client as well as times when DDL needs to refer back to the client (e.g. the counterparty does not respond after 3 successive approaches).

Normally these projects have been completed with 3-4 months depending upon counterparty responsiveness.

As we offer a completely confidential service, our policy is not to disclose our clients by name. However, the case studies on this website indicate the range of institutions for whom we have worked.