The Hon. Mr. Justice Moore-Bick
- This matter comes before the court by way of the trial of a claim under Part 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules in which the claimant, Peregrine Fixed Income Ltd ("Peregrine") seeks the determination of a number of issues between itself and the defendant, Robinson Department Store Public Company Ltd ("Robinson"), relating to the construction of the Master Agreement (Multicurrency - Cross Border) (1992) of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Inc. ("the Agreement"). The facts giving rise to the dispute are set out in a long and carefully drafted agreement between the parties from which the following summary is derived.
- Peregrine is a company incorporated in Hong Kong which up to 12th January 1998 carried on business as a provider of finance and financial products, including swaps and other derivatives. On 12th January 1998 the board of directors of its parent company resolved to seek the appointment of a provisional liquidator to the company and on 16th January 1998 provisional liquidators of Peregrine were appointed following the presentation of a winding-up petition against it in the High Court of the Hong Kong SAR on 15th January 1998.
- Robinson is a company incorporated in Thailand and carries on business as an operator of department stores in that country. It is currently in the process of initiating a restructuring of its debts under the supervision of the court. It has been accepted by Robinson and its creditors that under the proposed restructuring arrangement the creditors’ claims will be converted into equity. The eventual value of those claims will therefore depend on the performance of Robinson’s shares.
- On various occasions prior to December 1997 Peregrine and Robinson entered into derivatives transactions. In particular, on or about 20th November 1997 Peregrine and Robinson executed and exchanged the execution copy of a letter dated 20th November 1997 ("the Confirmation Letter") which was expressed to confirm a swap transaction under which, inter alia, Robinson agreed to pay Peregrine 25 annual instalments of US$6.85 million beginning in November 1998 and ending in November 2022. The Confirmation Letter incorporated the 1991 Definitions published by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and provided that if they were not already parties to a 1992 Master Agreement the parties would use their best endeavours to enter into one. On or about 16th December 1997 Peregrine and Robinson executed a copy of the Agreement and Schedule dated 17th February 1997. It is common ground that the terms of the Agreement and Schedule govern the contract between them and that English law is the proper law of the contract.
- The Agreement and Schedule are highly complex documents which give the parties the opportunity to choose how the contract is to operate under certain defined circumstances. The parties exercise that choice through the Schedule. In order to understand the issues to which this claim gives rise it is necessary to set out some of the terms of the Agreement at length, but in the interests of brevity I shall confine myself to those that are central to the dispute and summarise others where I think that may be of assistance. Most of the terms used in this judgment are defined in the Agreement and such defined terms are denoted by initial capitals. For ease of understanding I have adopted that convention throughout this judgment and accordingly expressions which have been given initial capitals should be understood as referring to those expressions as defined in the Agreement.
- Section 2 of the Agreement is headed "Obligations" and includes the following provisions:
"(a) General Conditions
(i) Each party will make each payment or delivery specified in each Confirmation to be made by it, subject to the other provisions of this Agreement.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(iii) Each obligation of each party under Section 2(a)(i) is subject to (1) the condition precedent that no Event of Default . . . . . with respect to the other party has occurred and is continuing, (2) the condition precedent that no Early Termination Date in respect of the relevant Transaction has occurred . . . . . . . . . ."
- Section 5 is headed "Events of Default and Termination Events". It sets out a number of situations which constitute Events of Default; these include an application by a party for the appointment of a provisional liquidator for itself or for all or substantially all of its assets. It is common ground that steps were taken by Peregrine on 15th January 1998 to seek the appointment of a provisional liquidator which fell within this provision. It is also important to note, however, that Section 5 also provides for what are called "Termination Events" which may lead to the termination of outstanding transactions but do not constitute Events of Default. Termination Events fall into five categories described as "Illegality", "Tax Event", "Tax Event Upon Merger", "Credit Event Upon Merger" and "Additional Termination Event", the last of these being additional circumstances agreed by the parties to constitute Termination Events.
- Section 6 deals with "Early Termination". It is important to note at the outset that it provides for Early Termination of transactions under a variety of different circumstances. The first is on the occurrence of an Event of Default for which Section 6(a) provides as follows:
Right to terminate Following Event of Default. If at any time an Event of Default with respect to a party (the "Defaulting Party") has occurred and is then continuing, the other party (the "Non-defaulting Party") may, by not more than 20 days notice to the Defaulting Party specifying the relevant Event of Default, designate a day not earlier than the day such notice is effective as an Early Termination Date in respect of all outstanding Transactions. If, however, "Automatic Early Termination" is specified in the Schedule as applying to a party, then an Early Termination Date in respect of all outstanding Transactions will occur immediately upon the occurrence with respect to such party of an Event of Default specified in Section 5(a)(vii) . . . . . (6) [an application for the appointment of a provisional liquidator]".
In the present case the parties had specified Automatic Early Termination in the Schedule to the Agreement.
- Section 6(b) deals with the right to terminate transactions following the occurrence of one of the Termination Events already mentioned. It recognises that one or other or both of the parties may be affected by the event in question. Such a party is described as an "Affected Party".
- Section 6(e) is headed "Payments on Early Termination". Again, it is important to note that it deals separately with termination following Events of Default in sub-paragraph (i) and termination following Termination Events in sub-paragraph (ii). Moreover, sub-paragraph (ii) contains different provisions depending on whether there are one or two Affected Parties. In the case of termination resulting from Events of Default the parties have the opportunity at the time of entering into the Agreement to choose between different formulae for calculating and paying the amount due from one to the other. It is unnecessary at this point to analyse the different formulae; it is sufficient for the moment to say that these parties chose what is described in Section 6(e)(i)(3) as the "Second Method and Market Quotation" formula which provides as follows:
"Second Method and Market Quotation. If the Second Method and Market Quotation apply an amount will be payable equal to (A) the sum of the Settlement Amount (determined by the Non-defaulting Party) in respect of the Terminated Transactions and the [US dollar] equivalent of the Unpaid Amounts owing to the Non-defaulting Party less (B) the [US dollar] equivalent of the Unpaid Amounts owing to the Defaulting Party. If that amount is a positive number, the Defaulting Party will pay it to the Non-defaulting Party; if it is a negative number, the Non-defaulting Party will pay the absolute value of that amount to the Defaulting Party."
The parties had chosen the United States dollar as the Termination Currency Equivalent, that is, the currency in which all outstanding obligations should be expressed for the purposes of this calculation. I have therefore inserted references to the US dollar in this sub-paragraph for the sake of simplicity. The expression "Unpaid Amount" is self-explanatory, but in fact Peregrine had fulfilled all its payment obligations under the contract and there were therefore no Unpaid Amounts outstanding in favour of Robinson as the Non-defaulting Party.
- In order to understand the effect of Section 6(e)(i)(3) it is necessary to turn next to the definitions of "Settlement Amount" and "Market Quotation". It is also convenient at this stage to consider the definition of "Loss". These are all defined in Section 14 of the Agreement.
- "Settlement Amount" is defined as follows:
"Settlement Amount" means, with respect to a party and any Early Termination Date, the sum of:-
(a) The [US dollar] Equivalent of the Market Quotations (whether positive or negative) for each Terminated Transaction or group of Terminated Transactions for which a Market Quotation is determined;
and
(b) such party’s Loss (whether positive or negative and without reference to any Unpaid Amounts) for each Terminated Transaction or group of Terminated Transactions for which a Market Quotation cannot be determined or would not (in the reasonable belief of the party making the determination) produce a commercially reasonable result."
- The definition of "Market Quotation" is very long and complex. The concept behind it is that of obtaining an open market valuation of the obligation which the Non-defaulting party has lost as a result of the default by obtaining from a representative number of first-class market - makers (the "Reference Market-makers") quotations for replacing the Defaulting party in the transaction. The material parts of the definition for present purposes provide as follows:
"Market Quotation" means, with respect to one or more Terminated Transactions and a party making the determination, an amount determined on the basis of quotations from [not less than three] Reference Market-makers. Each quotation will be for an amount, if any, that would be paid to such party (expressed as a negative number) or by such party (expressed as a positive number) in consideration of an agreement between such party (taking into account any existing Credit Support Document with respect to the obligations of such party) and the quoting Reference Market-maker to enter into a transaction (the "Replacement Transaction") that would have the effect of preserving for such party the economic equivalent of any payment or delivery ( . . . . assuming the satisfaction of each applicable condition precedent) by the parties under Section 2(a)(i) in respect of such Terminated Transaction . . . . . . . . . . that would, but for the occurrence of the relevant Early Termination Date, have been required after that date."
- The definition of "Loss" is also long and complex. For present purposes it is sufficient to quote the following parts:
"Loss" means, with respect to . . . . . . . . . . a party, the [US dollar] Equivalent of an amount that party reasonably determines in good faith to be its total losses and costs (or gain, in which case expressed as a negative number) in connection with the Terminated Transaction . . . . . . . . . including any loss of bargain, cost of funding or, at the election of such party but without duplication, loss or cost incurred as a result of its terminating, liquidating, obtaining, or reestablishing any hedge or related trading position (or any gain resulting from any of them). . . . . . . . . . ."
- In the present case the transaction embodied in the Confirmation Letter automatically terminated on 15th January 1998 when Peregrine took steps to seek the appointment of a provisional liquidator. That was the combined effect of the occurrence of an Event of Default falling within Section 5(a)(vii)(6) and the parties’ specifying Automatic Early Termination as contemplated in Section 6(a). There were no other outstanding transactions between the parties at that date and it was therefore for Robinson as the Non-defaulting Party to determine the Settlement Amount in accordance with Section 6(e)(i)(3) of the Agreement. Quotations were sought from a number of Reference Market-makers who were asked to quote a price for entering into a replacement transaction, that is, to purchase Robinson’s outstanding obligations. Three quotations were provided which, after disregarding the highest and lowest as required by the Agreement, produced a figure of US$9,694,901. In other words, those who were agreed to represent the market for these purposes valued Robinson’s obligation to pay US$6.85 million each year for twenty five years (a total of US$171.25 million, or a little over US$87.3 million at present day values using conventional discounting methods) at just over US$9.5 million. If one adopts the Market Quotation measure as the basis for calculating the Settlement Amount, the amount payable by Robinson to Peregrine under Section 6(e)(i)(3) is US$9,694,901. That, therefore, is the amount for which Peregrine would be entitled to prove in the liquidation (or in this case the reconstruction) of Robinson.
- Against that background Mr. Hapgood Q.C. on behalf of Peregrine submitted that in this case the use of the Market Quotation measure to calculate the amount payable under Section 6(e) does not produce a commercially reasonable result because it grossly undervalues Robinson’s obligation, or more accurately, what Robinson has gained as a result of the termination of the transaction. That much, he said, is demonstrated by the extent of the discrepancy between the present discounted value of Robinson’s obligation and the figure obtained by Market Quotation. The possibility that a Market Quotation might not produce a commercially reasonable result is one which is expressly contemplated in the definition of the Settlement Amount. In such cases, he submitted, the definition requires that the Settlement Amount be calculated by reference to the Defaulting Party’s actual Loss rather than a Market Quotation. Accordingly, instead of using Market Quotation Robinson should have used the alternative measure, Loss, for the purposes of calculating the Settlement Amount. That would have resulted in the amount payable under Section 6(e) being US$87.3 million.
- This is all very well as far as it goes, but it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the calculation of the amount payable under Section 6 is the responsibility of the Non-defaulting Party and in cases where the parties have chosen the Market Quotation measure the Agreement only requires the calculation of the Settlement Amount to be made by reference to the Loss measure if in that party’s reasonable belief the use of Market Quotation would not produce a commercially reasonable result. Robinson has said that it does believe that Market Quotation produces a commercially reasonable result and Mr. Milligan Q.C. on its behalf has explained why, in his submission, the result which it produces is both reasonable and in accordance with the wider principles of the Agreement.
- Against this background Peregrine has asked the court to determine the following five questions:
(1) Is Peregrine entitled to challenge Robinson’s belief that the Market Quotation payment measure has produced a commercially reasonable result?
(2) If so, does the Market Quotation payment measure produce a commercially reasonable result?
(3) If the answer to question (2) is ‘No’, is Peregrine entitled to require Robinson, and/or is Robinson bound, to use the Loss payment measure in determining the Settlement Amount?
(4) If the answer to question (3) is ‘Yes’, or if the court is willing to determine this question in any event, is Loss to be determined
(a) as Peregrine contends; or
(b) as Robinson contends?
(5) Without prejudice to the generality of question (4), is the creditworthiness of Robinson relevant to the assessment of Loss, and if so, is there any condition, limitation or restriction on the extent to which, or in respect of the manner in which, such creditworthiness should be considered as relevant or taken into account?
- On the face of it one can well see why Peregrine considers that the use of Market Quotation as the basis for calculating the amount payable under Section 6 produces an unreasonable result in this case. Two closely related questions immediately spring to mind: how can an obligation which has a nominal present value of US$87.3 million be worth only US$9.7 million; and why does a valuation derived from the market (which in principle ought to provide a reliable assessment of the value of the transaction) apparently fall so far short of the figure which would ordinarily be attributed to the contract if one were valuing the loss of the bargain?
- I think the answer to both of these questions lies partly in the fact that Robinson is itself in serious financial difficulties, as the restructuring arrangements demonstrate. By seeking quotations from a group of Reference Market-makers in accordance with the Agreement Robinson was effectively asking the market how much it would pay to take over the benefit of its obligation. Unless precluded from doing so, it is inevitable that when answering that question the market would consider not just the nominal amount of the obligation but many other factors as well, including the period over which the payments were due to be made and the risk of default on the part of Robinson. It has to be remembered that in this case none of Peregrine’s obligations remained outstanding and there was no form of security or credit support in place. In reality Peregrine was simply holding a long-term unsecured debt due from Robinson. If the debtor is financially weak, the market cannot be expected to regard his unsecured debt in the same way as it might regard the debt of a first-class financial institution.
- It was common ground that Reference Market-makers who are approached for quotations under the terms of this Agreement are not required or expected to ignore the financial standing of the Non-defaulting Party when considering what they would pay, or demand, as the price of entering into a Replacement Transaction. The definition of Market Quotation expressly requires them to quote on the basis of entering into a contract with the Non-defaulting party that would have the effect of preserving for that party the economic equivalent of any payment due under the original contract and when doing so to take into account any existing Credit Support Document relating to that party’s obligations. As both parties recognised, this reflects an assumption that the financial status of the Non-defaulting Party will be taken into account. The Reference Market-makers are required to assume the satisfaction of each applicable condition precedent, but that only requires them to assume that all conditions precedent to performance by the Non-defaulting party have been, or will be, performed. It has no bearing on the ability of the Non-defaulting Party to perform when the time comes. The Market Quotation measure is, therefore, one which in certain circumstances may result in the payment which has to be made by the Non-defaulting Party to the Defaulting Party under Section 6(e) failing to a substantial degree to reflect fully the nominal value of the obligation owed by the Non-defaulting Party.
- It was fundamental to Mr. Hapgood’s argument that the Market Quotation and Loss measures should lead to a broadly similar result, and indeed he relied in part on the difference in the results he said they produced in this case as evidence of the fact that the result produced by the Market Quotation measure is commercially unreasonable. Whether any given result is in fact commercially unreasonable must very largely depend on the extent to which it departs from the result which the parties must be taken to have had in mind, and that, of course, is a matter which has to be determined by reference to the terms of the Agreement. One of the interesting characteristics of the Agreement is that on Early Termination as a result of an Event of Default the Non-defaulting Party may be required to make a payment to the Defaulting Party. Mr. Hapgood submitted that where the parties have specified Automatic Early Termination the occurrence of an Event of Default effectively closes out all their open transactions at once and a payment will then become due from the Non-defaulter to the Defaulter if, taken overall, the Defaulter is "in the money", as was the case here. Mr. Milligan, on the other hand, submitted that an important distinction is drawn in the Agreement between termination as a result of an Event of Default and termination following a Termination Event. In the former case the Agreement, he submitted, is only concerned with preventing the Non-defaulting Party from obtaining a windfall benefit as a result of the other party’s default. It was not intended to enable the Defaulting Party to obtain the full benefit of any obligations owed to him. In this respect it seemed that there might be a clear difference between the parties as to the philosophy of the Agreement.
- In Section 6(e) the Agreement provides for two fundamentally different methods of handling payments on Early Termination. Under what is termed the "First Method" the Defaulting Party pays the Non-defaulting Party an amount equal to the value of the outstanding obligations under the transactions which have been terminated less any unpaid amounts owed to him by the Non-defaulting Party. The Defaulting Party recovers nothing in respect of the loss of his bargain, notwithstanding that he may have been "in the money" at the time of default. This reflects the position under English law following the repudiation of a contract: accrued liabilities are unaffected and the defaulter must compensate the non-defaulter for the loss of any unperformed obligations but he is not entitled to receive anything himself in respect of the lost bargain. Under the "Second Method" a payment may be made either way depending on whether the net balance of gain and loss favours the Defaulting or Non-defaulting Party. That appears most clearly from Section 6(e)(i)(4) and the definition of Loss from which it is clear that the Non-defaulting Party’s "loss" in respect of the Terminated Transactions may be a negative amount (i.e. a gain), in which case a payment of that amount must be made to the Defaulting Party.
- These provisions seem to me to support Mr. Hapgood’s submission that the object of the Second Method of payment (whether combined with Market Quotation or Loss as the basis of measurement) is to move away from a simple breach-based approach towards one under which all the transactions covered by the Agreement are effectively closed out. I think that it would be going too far to say that they are intended in all cases to operate neutrally as between the parties, but the fact that the Non-defaulting Party must account to the Defaulting Party for any gain clearly deprives the Event of Default of most of its characteristics as a breach of contract. However, the parties are free to agree to that and there are no doubt good commercial reasons for doing so. It is interesting to note that in the absence of any other choice Section 6(e) provides that the Second Method is to apply. It is necessary, however, in order to give full consideration to Mr. Milligan’s argument, also to examine Section 6(e)(ii) which deals with Early Termination resulting from Termination Events, i.e. events which do not constitute Events of Default.
- Section 6(e)(ii) distinguishes between the situation in which there is one Affected Party and the situation where there are two. To understand the operation of Section 6(e)(ii), therefore, it is necessary first to turn to Section 5(b) which describes what constitute Termination Events and defines the term "Affected Party". Termination Events fall into four categories: (i) Illegality, (ii) Tax Event, (iii) Tax Event Upon Merger and (iv) Credit Event Upon Merger. (One can ignore for present purposes the fifth category of Additional Termination Events which covers additional events specified by the parties. There were none in the present case.) The definition of Affected Party differs in each case to reflect the nature of the event in question. For the purposes of Illegality it is defined as a party which is prevented by supervening illegality from further performance; for the purposes of Tax Event it is defined as a party which becomes liable to bear an additional tax burden as a result of some supervening change in the applicable tax régime; for the purposes of Tax Event Upon Merger it is defined as a party which becomes subject to an additional tax burden as a result of a merger; and for the purposes of Credit Event Upon Merger it is defined as a party whose creditworthiness is materially weakened as a result of a merger. The one thing these four categories have in common is that they all involve a material alteration in the position of one party as a result of an event which does not amount to an Event of Default. They give rise to a right to terminate the transaction under certain circumstances which are set out in Section 6(b).
- Section 6(e)(ii) deals with the consequences of termination arising from a Termination Event. If there is only one Affected Party the amount payable as a result of early termination is determined in accordance with Section 6(e)(i)(3) if the Market Quotation payment measure has been chosen and in accordance with Section 6(e)(i)(4) if the Loss payment measure has been chosen. For these purposes references in those sub-paragraphs to the Defaulting Party and the Non-defaulting Party are to be read as references to the Affected Party and the party which is not the Affected Party respectively. In either case, however, the Second Method of payment applies. If there are two Affected Parties, the position is more complicated. Each party determines it own loss in relation to the Terminated Transaction (using the Market Quotation or Loss payment measure as appropriate) and a payment of half the difference is then made by one to the other to balance the gains and losses equally between the two parties.
- Mr. Milligan submitted that an Event of Default is a breach of contract and that the way in which the Agreement deals with Termination Events shows that a different régime was intended to apply where neither party was at fault from that which applies when there has been an Event of Default. In my view, however, when one examines Section 6(e)(ii) as a whole one can see that that is only partly true. One of the striking features of these provisions is that where there is only one Affected Party the position exactly mirrors that under Sections 6(e)(i)(3) and (4). This strikes me as significant in two respects. In the first place, having regard to the fact that Termination Events occur without fault of either party, it is perhaps not surprising that the Affected Party should retain the benefit of the transaction if it is "in the money" at the date of termination and should not be penalised by the occurrence of an event for which he is not in legal terms responsible. That is presumably why the calculation of the amount to be paid must be carried out in accordance with sub-paragraphs (3) and (4) of Section 6(e)(i) to the exclusion of sub-paragraphs (1) and (2). In the second place, however, it underlines the similarity between the treatment of the parties in the case of a Termination Event where only one of them is affected and the case of default on the part of one party where the parties have chosen the Second Method of payment. In other words, where, for example, the transaction is terminated as a result of supervening illegality affecting only one party the transaction is closed out in just the same way as it would be if that party were in default. This in turn highlights the distinction between the First and Second Methods of payment. Where there are two Affected Parties they are both in precisely the same position and neither can be equated to the Defaulting or Non-defaulting Party. I think that provides a sufficient explanation for the particular way of calculating the payment in that particular case. In the event, therefore, I do not think that Mr. Milligan gains much assistance from the provisions relating to Termination Events.
- Finally some further indication of the general purpose of Section 6(e) can be found in sub-paragraph (iv) which provides as follows:
"Pre-Estimate. The parties agree that if Market Quotation applies an amount recoverable under this Section 6(e) is a reasonable pre-estimate of loss and not a penalty. Such amount is payable for the loss of bargain and the loss of protection against future risks and except as otherwise provided in this Agreement neither party will be entitled to recover any additional damages as a consequence of such losses."
This, of course, provides further support for Mr. Hapgood’s submission that the payment called for under Section 6(e) is intended broadly to reflect the loss of bargain.
- Much of Mr. Hapgood’s argument in the present case proceeded on the premise that the object of Section 6(e)(i)(3) is to preserve the benefit of the bargain for the party "in the money" at the time of termination. However, although that is no doubt how it will work in most cases, it is not the way in which this part of the Agreement is constructed. Section 6(e)(i) does not require the Non-defaulting Party to compensate the Defaulting party for the loss of the bargain he suffers by reasons of his own default; it requires the Non-defaulting party to calculate his loss and to account to the Defaulting Party for any gain he has made by being relieved of further performance. That appears most clearly from Section 6(e)(i)(4) in which the Loss measure is used, but applies equally to Section 6(e)(i)(3). A payment will therefore only become due to the Defaulting Party if and insofar as it represents a gain to the Non-defaulting Party resulting from its being relieved of a disadvantageous contract.
- I think Mr. Hapgood was right in saying that when one is seeking to determine what outcome is broadly contemplated by the Agreement when Market Quotation is used in the calculation of the Settlement Amount and hence the amount payable under Section 6(e)(i)(3) some assistance can be derived from Section 6(e)(i)(4) which is concerned with the alternative calculation based on the Loss payment measure. I say that because Loss is defined in terms which make it clear that loss of bargain is one of the principal heads of damage intended to be covered and both Section 6(e)(i)(3) and Section 6(e)(iv) indicate that the Market Quotation measure and the Loss measure are intended to lead to broadly the same result. My attention has also been drawn to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd v Société Général (Court of Appeal, 29th February 2000, unreported) in which the Court of Appeal considered the definition of Loss in this form of Agreement with reference to certain hedging contracts. The details of the case do not matter for present purposes, but it is interesting to note that Mance L.J., with whose judgment the only other member of the court, Kennedy L.J., agreed, also considered that the Market Quotation measure and the Loss measure were intended to lead to broadly the same result. If the parties had chosen to adopt the Loss measure for these purposes the primary element in Robinson’s calculation would have been the gain represented by being relieved of the obligation to perform the contract. In this case the termination of the transaction has relieved Robinson from the performance of an obligation whose present nominal value is US$87.3 million. When assessing damages for the loss of a bargain one does not normally discount its nominal value for the chance that the obligor will fail to perform and I can see nothing in the definition of Loss to suggest that a different approach is called for under this Agreement. By normal standards, therefore, the present value of its obligation, US$87.3 million, reflects the amount Robinson has gained by being relieved of the requirement to perform its obligations and I find it difficult to accept that it has gained only to the extent that it might actually have been capable of performing those obligations. If Robinson were financially strong, it is likely that Market Quotation would have produced a Settlement Amount somewhere near that figure, although there would presumably always have been some discount for contingencies.
- Mr. Milligan submitted, however, that even applying the Loss measure Robinson’s gain was far less that the full nominal value of the obligation. He submitted that allowance should be made for the cost of funding an immediate payment of US$87.3 million which would itself cost Robinson a total of US$71.436 million because of its poor credit rating. That, he said, reduced Robinson’s net gain to a little under US$15.9 million.
- I am unable to accept that argument. I think it is clear both from the language of the definition itself and from the wider context of the Agreement that the definition of Loss is directed to identifying the loss which a party has suffered as a result of the termination of the transaction or transactions in question and is not concerned with the steps which a party may take to fund any payment required pursuant to Section 6(e). Loss is simply one step on the road which leads to the assessment of the amount payable by one party to the other in respect of Early Termination. It must be remembered that in many cases an Event of Default will result in the termination of several transactions between the same parties and the calculation by the Non-defaulting Party of his overall loss or gain may call for an analysis of the position under each one. The definition of Loss is in my view intended to go some way towards identifying the heads of loss which can properly be taken into account when analysing the position under any one transaction. It has nothing to do with the means by which the amount, if any, ultimately payable by the Non-defaulting Party to the Defaulting Party is funded.
- In these circumstances I think Mr. Hapgood is right in saying that in the present case the Market Quotation measure and the Loss measure yield significantly different results when calculating the amount to be paid by Robinson to Peregrine. Is that something which is consistent with the wider objects of the Agreement? I do not think it is. This case is far from being typical of those to which these provisions are likely to apply. Only one transaction between these two parties has been affected by the Early Termination provisions of Section 6 and that transaction is itself far from being a typical swap transaction. Moreover, the discrepancy between the results produced by adopting these different measures results from an unusual combination of factors, namely, the extreme financial weakness of the Non-defaulting Party and an Event of Default brought about by the party which was not simply the party "in the money" but which had already performed the whole of its side of the bargain.
- With this in mind I turn again to the language of Section 6(e)(i)(3) and thence to the definition of "Settlement Amount". The critical words are
"Settlement Amount" means . . . . . the sum of:-
(a) the [US dollar] Equivalent of the Market Quotations (whether positive or negative) for each Terminated Transaction . . . . . . . . for which a Market Quotation is determined;
and
(b) such party’s Loss . . . . . . . . . . for each Terminated Transaction . . . . . for which a Market Quotation cannot be determined or would not (in the reasonable belief of the party making the determination) produce a commercially reasonable result."
- The first thing to notice is that the Agreement here recognises that it may be appropriate to adopt the Loss measure even in a case where a Market Quotation could be obtained. The second is that the definition itself recognises that there may be circumstances in which the Market Quotation measure will not operate satisfactorily. This provides further support for the proposition that Loss as defined in the Agreement provides a benchmark by reference to which the Market Quotation measure should be judged. It is clear, however, that whether Market Quotation would or would not produce a commercially reasonable result is a matter of judgment and is a matter to be determined by the Non-defaulting Party. Mr. Milligan submitted that the option to move to the Loss measure had no application once a Market Quotation had been obtained. He submitted that paragraph (a) of the definition of Settlement Amount makes it clear that if a Market Quotation has been obtained, the situation contemplated by paragraph (b) cannot arise and the calculation proceeds automatically in accordance with the prescribed formula. The use of the words "would not" in the phrase "would not produce a commercially reasonable result", which pointed to the obtaining of a Market Quote at some time in the future, should therefore be read as meaning "would not, if obtained, produce a commercially reasonable result". It follows, he submitted, that, once obtained, a Market Quotation necessarily produced a commercially reasonable result.
- I am unable to accept this submission which in my view fails to give sufficient weight to the underlying objective of Section 6(e). There are various circumstances in which a Market Quotation may not produce a commercially reasonable result, some of which were canvassed in argument, and paragraph (b) of the definition of Settlement Amount recognises that that is so. If, when he comes to determine the Settlement Amount, the Non-defaulting party already believes that to be the case, he is relieved of the need to obtain a Market Quotation, but at that time he may be unaware of the existence of circumstances which would cause it to have that effect. Alternatively, he may be unaware of the extent to which factors of which he is generally aware will influence the market. Or again, he may not have fully in mind all the factors which he ought to take into account when forming an opinion about whether the result would be commercially unreasonable. For my own part I think the phrase "would not produce a commercially reasonable result" can equally well be construed as meaning "would not, if used, produce a commercially reasonable result". If that is so, the obtaining of a Market Quotation as contemplated by paragraph (a) does not inevitably preclude the use of the Loss measure in the circumstances contemplated by paragraph (b). Such a construction is in my view more conducive to the object of the Agreement which is to assess with reasonable accuracy the loss or gain to the Non-defaulting party as a result of the termination of the transaction. I see no reason why the parties should be taken to have agreed that they should in effect be bound by the decision of the Non-defaulting Party to seek a Market Quotation even if, for some reason which that party failed to appreciate at the time, it would produced an obviously unreasonable result and I can find nothing in the language of the Agreement which compels me to that conclusion.
- I come next to the question whether the use of a Market Quotation would in fact produce a commercially unreasonable result in this case and, if so, what if any steps can be taken by Peregrine to challenge the calculation by Robinson of the amount payable under Section 6(e)(i) of the Agreement. As to the first of these, although I am aware that commercial men are generally by far the best judges of what is and is not commercially reasonable, I am satisfied that the use of Market Quotation would not produce a commercially reasonable result in this case. This is a matter which has to be judged not simply by reference to the interests of one or other party but by reference to the aims and objects of the Agreement insofar as they are to be gathered from its terms as a whole. Adopting that approach it seems to me that where Market Quotation produces a result as far removed from that which would be produced by the use of the Loss measure as it does in this case it is possible to say with some confidence that the result is commercially unreasonable by the standards of the Agreement.
- That of itself is not enough, however. The Non-defaulting Party is responsible for determining the Settlement Amount and the Agreement provides for the use of the Loss measure only if Market Quotation would not, in the reasonable belief of that party, produce a commercially reasonable result. The court cannot, therefore, simply substitute its own judgment of what is commercially reasonable for that of the Non-defaulting Party. However, I do think that the Agreement by necessary implication requires the Non-defaulting Party to consider whether the Market Quotation measure would produce a commercially reasonable result and to adopt the Loss measure instead if it does not believe that it would. Moreover, there is some protection for the Defaulting Party in the fact that the view taken by the Non-defaulting Party must be "reasonable", that is, it must be based on reasonable grounds. That in turn requires that it must be one which can reasonably be held taking into account all the factors which ought properly be taken into account. In many cases there may well be room for different opinions, but in others it may be possible to say that a view one way or the other cannot reasonably be justified. If in such a case the Non-defaulting Party acted on the basis of a view of the matter which could not reasonably be justified, the Defaulting Party would in my view be entitled to relief on the basis that the adoption of the wrong measure in determining the Settlement Amount would amount to a breach of the Agreement.
- Leaving aside cases where there is or may be a lack of honest belief, when the court is asked to decide in a case of this kind whether a person has acted in breach of contract it should in my view adopt a similar approach to that taken in the well-known case of Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223. It should not regard any act done by him honestly and in good faith as unjustified or involving a breach of contract unless it is clear that the belief in which he acted was flawed in one of the ways identified in that case. Mr. Hapgood submitted that the established approach to judicial review of discretionary decisions represented by the Wednesbury case was the proper approach in a case of this kind and Mr. Milligan did not disagree. In order for Peregrine to challenge the calculation of the amount payable under Section 6(e)(i)(3), therefore, it is necessary for it to show that the decision to use a Market Quotation for the purpose was flawed in the sense I have just indicated. It has been agreed in this case that Robinson believes that the use of the Market Quotation measure has produced a commercially reasonable result and it has not been suggested that that belief is not honestly held. However, in reaching that conclusion I do not think that Robinson can have taken proper account of the various terms of the Agreement to which I have referred, to the gain which accrued to it as a result of its having been relieved of the obligation to perform its contract or to the purpose behind the calculation of the Settlement Amount. It must also have failed, in my judgment, to take proper account of the discrepancy both between the nominal value of the obligation and the amount payable under Section 6(e) which is produced by using the Market Quotation measure, and also the substantial difference between the amount payable to Peregrine under Section 6(e) produced by using the Market Quotation measure and that produced by using the Loss measure. These are all factors which ought to be taken into account when considering whether the result is commercially reasonable by the standards of the Agreement and I do not think that anyone who had taken them into account could have formed the view that the use of Market Quotation in this case would produce a commercially reasonable result. In these circumstances I do not think that Robinson’s belief was one which a reasonable person in its position, properly directing himself in accordance with the Agreement, could hold. In adopting the Market Quotation measure for the purposes of calculating the Settlement Amount rather than the Loss measure, therefore, Robinson acted in breach of the Agreement.
- I therefore answer the questions set out in the claim form as follows:
(4) ‘Loss is to be determined as the claimant contends and in accordance with the principles set out in this judgment’;
(5) ‘No’.