Courting attention

While standardised documentation for complex financial products has been in place for some time, dispute resolution for those products is often performed on an ad hoc basis. But a new initiative looking at the possibility of establishing a specialised legal facility in The Hague may change that. Rob Davies reports

Way back in 1994, when the derivatives industry was still in its infancy, a dramatic and unexpected series of hikes in US interest rates set the backdrop for a number of protracted, contentious and painful disputes. In April of that year, Cincinnati-based consumer products company Procter & Gamble revealed a $157 million pre-tax loss on two complex interest rate swaps trades, while Gibson