A Practical Guide to Using Repo Master Agreements: Existing market practice for legal documentation in Europe and the USA

Fully revised and updated third edition

A Practical Guide to Using Repo Master Agreements is the essential book for all who need to know about the international repo market and its products, the important legal, credit and regulatory issues in this space, and most of all need to understand the contents of repo master agreements so that they can negotiate them safely and confidently.

The book is written by two of the world's leading commentators on the subject, Paul C Harding and Christian A Johnson and its coverage is comprehensive.

This new third edition principally offers readers a detailed guide to the most widely used European and US repo master agreements through a clause-by-clause text and commentary on each master agreement. This commentary is written in clear English for a good, swift understanding of the implications of each provision.

The full texts of each repo master agreement are reproduced in the appendices with the kind permission of the trade associations concerned.

Triparty repo is an important part of the US repo market and clause-by-clause commentary and a full text of the Bank of New York Mellon Tri-party Custodial Repo Agreement (2016) is also provided.

This third edition has been updated to include:

- The new, updated Bank of New York Mellon Tri-party Custodial Repo Agreement (2016).
- A summary of recent developments in the European and US repo markets since 2012.
- Fresh examples of clauses parties seek to negotiate in these agreements.
- A comprehensive and easy-to-navigate table of contents to find items of greatest interest quickly.

This book is principally aimed at lawyers and paralegals who negotiate ICMA and SIFMA repo master agreements. Other professionals in the European and US securities markets will also find this book useful. These could include traders, credit officers and regulators as well as academics specialising in financial securities. Such professionals may work for commercial or investment banks, law firms, treasury units, central banks, pension funds and fund managers. Such is the broad potential appeal of this must-have book which caters for the novice and seasoned negotiator alike.

Paul C. Harding is a graduate of the University of London, and has worked in several UK and foreign banks in London, in credit, marketing and documentation roles. Since 1990 he has been involved with derivatives documentation. He was a well-known negotiator in the City of London with Barclays Capital Securities Limited and Hill Samuel Bank Limited, where he was Head of Treasury Documentation. In February 1997 he founded Derivatives Documentation Limited, a derivatives consultancy and project management company, based in the City of London and providing negotiation, recruitment and in-house training services in derivatives documentation (website: www.derivsdocu.com). Its clients include many of the world’s leading banks. Since 2000 the company has also done considerable repo documentation training. In November 2001 Paul’s book Mastering the ISDA Master Agreement was published by Financial Times–Prentice Hall. This was followed by his Mastering Collateral Management and Documentation, written in conjunction with Christian Johnson, which was published by Financial Times–Prentice Hall, in November 2002. His book on the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement was published in December 2003 also by Financial Times–Prentice Hall, and in 2004 the first edition of A Practical Guide to using Repo Master Agreements by Paul Harding and Christian Johnson was published by Euromoney Books.

Christian Johnson is the Dean of Widener University Commonwealth Law School and has coauthored five books with Paul Harding on the documentation and regulation of repos, OTC derivatives, securities lending, and capital markets. Dean Johnson is also a frequent speaker on these issues to such institutions as the CFTC, NFA, FIA, the IMF and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on capital market reforms. In addition, he has also spoken at such institutions as Monash University in Melbourne, Osgoode Law School (York University), the National University of Singapore, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Stockholm. Dean Johnson has also done extensive training on repos for large financial institutions throughout the globe. Dean Johnson received his JD from Columbia Law School (where he was executive editor of the Columbia Law Review) and was an associate for Milbank, Tweed in New York and Mayer, Brown, in Chicago. He was also a CPA for Price Waterhouse.