The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) is pleased to announce the launch of its Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA) Clause Library and Taxonomy, an additional valuable service for ICMA members that will help facilitate standardisation and improve efficiencies in the process of negotiating and managing GMRAs.
Developed by ICMA, working with global legal change and consulting firm, D2 Legal Technology (D2LT), and in collaboration with ICMA members, the primary objective of the ICMA GMRA Clause Library and Taxonomy is to eliminate or reduce the need to negotiate and the considerable time spent debating the form of contract clauses that achieve the same business outcomes. Market participants will benefit by achieving cost savings in on-boarding new counterparties.
ICMA believes that the adoption of common standards will enable the use of digital technology by providing settled and clear product and legal specifications for market participants and technology providers, with which to build platforms and solutions.
The ICMA GMRA Clause Library and Taxonomy intends to help to reduce legal risk by:
● Introducing industry validated clauses, which will reduce scope for error and problematic or inconsistent drafting
● Improving the efficiency of negotiations by allowing lawyers and negotiators to focus on the most substantive and consequential clauses and issues
● Allowing for greater visibility in meeting business, regulatory and operational requirements as and when they arise.
Addressing a growing need
The ICMA GMRA Clause Library and Taxonomy is a living document and will develop with the market as new clauses, variants or variables are utilised by our members.
Leland Goss, Managing Director and General Counsel of ICMA commented: “ICMA has devoted considerable resources to developing a standard master agreement for repo transactions. Recognising the value and importance of digitising these standards, we are pleased, in collaboration with D2LT, to announce the availability of the GMRA Clause Library and Taxonomy to aid ICMA members in increasing efficiency, reducing risk and providing greater visibility of business requirements for legal data.”
Akber Datoo, CEO, D2LT added: “While many market participants in the repo market have reaped some of the efficiencies and risk mitigation benefits delivered by the use of systems and data for some time, their documentation and legal teams have remained constrained by manual processes that have historically hindered their ability to unlock the business value offered by such technologies. We are delighted to have been able to work with ICMA and its members to facilitate this by enhancing common legal agreement documentation and data standards and assisting with the digitisation of the GMRA documentation.”
Contact details for further information:
Oliver Tinkler, ICMA, oliver.tinkler@icmagroup.org, Tel: +44 7931 100499
International Capital Market Association (ICMA). ICMA promotes well-functioning cross-border capital markets, which are essential to fund sustainable economic growth. It is a not-for-profit membership association with offices in Zurich, London, Paris, Brussels and Hong Kong, serving around 620 member firms in 66 jurisdictions. Among its members are private and official sector issuers, banks, broker-dealers, asset managers, pension funds, insurance companies, market infrastructure providers, central banks and law firms. It provides industry-driven standards and recommendations, prioritising four core fixed income market areas: primary, secondary, repo and collateral and sustainable finance. ICMA works with regulatory and governmental authorities, helping to ensure that financial regulation supports stable and efficient capital markets.
D2 Legal Technology
Award-winning legal data consultancy, D2 Legal Technology (D2LT), advises firms on the use of technology to unlock business value through legal change. Founded in 2011, today D2LT is at the forefront of assisting firms with expert solutions relating to capital markets legal agreement data management, technology and process, data privacy and protection, assisting its clients across Europe, the US and APAC regions. In 2021 to date, D2LT was a winner in the Waters Technology Inside Market Data & Inside Reference Data ‘Best Counterparty Data Project or Initiative’ relating to close-out netting legal opinion digitisation. D2LT has been consistently recognised in many industry awards, such as the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers and Intelligent Business, The Lawyer and Legal Week for its transformative work in the changing face of legal services.
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