ISDA Augments Documentation Committee Leadership, Adds Advisory Board with Buy-side Expertise

NEW YORK, Friday, February 5, 2010The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) today announced that it is broadening the leadership of the ISDA Documentation Committee by forming an Advisory Board that will encompass buy- and sell-side institutions to better represent global documentation needs across constituencies.

The Board will provide strategic guidance and leadership to the Documentation Committee’s work on a range of topics, including new product documentation, resource allocation across projects, legal opinion scope and coverage of Amicus Briefs, and will replace the existing regional chairmanship structure.

“The new Advisory Board will boost ISDA’s legal and documentation efforts across regions and disciplines,” said Eraj Shirvani, Chairman of ISDA and Head of Fixed Income EMEA at Credit Suisse. “The Board will facilitate a globally consistent approach to documentation development and maintenance while ensuring appropriate levels of regional expertise on key matters of relevance to both buy-and sell-side.”

The Advisory Board will include the current chairs of the ISDA Documentation Committee: Chip Goodrich (Deutsche Bank), Serge Salabi (BNP Paribas), Teruo Tanaka (Royal Bank of Scotland) and Don Thompson (JP Morgan Chase)

The following experienced industry practitioners have also agreed to serve on the Board:

Tricia Bowden, Managing Director and Senior Counsel, Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd.

Sarah Lee, Associate General Counsel, Global Head of Credit Derivatives, Legal and Derivatives Regulatory, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Christopher Ramsay, Director and Associate General Counsel and Head of Global Transaction Management, Citadel Investment Group, LLC

James Starky, Chief Legal Officer, Cairn Capital Limited

Andrew Wan, Director and Senior Counsel Asia Pacific Legal, Citibank, N.A

The ISDA Documentation Committee provides overall direction for all documentation projects and supervises the association’s respective documentation working groups. The Committee expands and updates the library of ISDA documentation and works to ensure the enforceability of the netting provisions of the Master Agreements.

About ISDA

ISDA, which represents participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry, is among the world’s largest global financial trade associations as measured by number of member firms. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has over 810 member institutions from 58 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world’s major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities.  Information about ISDA and its activities is available on the Association’s web site: www.isda.org.

ISDA is a registered trademark of the International Swaps & Derivatives Association, Inc.

Documents (1) for ISDA Augments Documentation Committee Leadership, Adds Advisory Board with Buy-side Expertise

ISDA Omnibus Canadian Representation Letter

On September 2, ISDA published the Omnibus Canadian Representation Letter, which combines previously published representation letters drafted to assist firms in compliance with Canadian trade reporting, business conduct, regulatory margin and clearing classification rules. The Omnibus Canadian Letter is designed...

Joint Response on Cross-margining

On August 31, ISDA and FIA submitted a letter to the US Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the agencies’ joint request for comment on the implementation of portfolio margining and cross-margining...

Response to SEC on FICC Guaranty Fund

On September 1, ISDA and FIA submitted a joint response to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), supporting the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s (FICC) proposal to establish a dedicated guaranty fund at its government securities division (GSD). FICC had...