ISDA Negotiation

We put dedicated ISDA counsel on your side, so the agreement is negotiated, not just signed.

Every swap and structured hedge lives inside an ISDA you can negotiate, but only before the trade is signed. We push back on the one-sided terms that carry the real risk.

Banks will frequently present the ISDA as a boilerplate document similar to the regulatory forms required for onboarding. In reality, the ISDA is a highly negotiable document with provisions that present real risk to your deal. Pensford's job is to level the playing field and make that document as bilateral as possible.

Behind every swap sits an ISDA Master Agreement and its schedule. The contract governs collateral, termination events, cross-default, and the fine print that controls what happens when something goes wrong.

The terms that matter most are the ones that only surface under stress: additional termination events that let the bank unwind on you, cross-default clauses that tie the hedge to unrelated obligations, and collateral thresholds that can trigger at the worst possible time. They are all negotiable, but only before the trade is executed. Once a confirmation is signed, the leverage is gone.

We negotiate the schedule on your behalf, holding it to borrower-friendly standards and pushing back on the one-sided language that carries real risk. We coordinate with your counsel so the legal and economic terms line up, and we do it quietly and up front, where it actually counts.