By Fiona Luong and Geoff Wynne

On August 6, 2018 President Trump issued an executive order re-imposing certain sanctions that were lifted under the 2016 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ('JCPOA'). These include the prohibition of:

• The purchase or acquisition of US dollar banknotes by the Iranian government;
• Iran’s trade in gold or precious metals;
• The sale, supply or transfer (whether direct or indirect) to or from Iran of materials such as graphite, raw or semifinished metals, including aluminium and steel, coal and software, or integrating industrial processes;
• ‘Significant’ transactions involving the purchase or sale of Iranian rials, or maintenance of ‘significant’ funds or accounts outside Iran denominated in rials;
• The purchase, subscription to or facilitation of the issuance of Iranian sovereign debt; and
• Transactions within Iran’s automotive sector.

While we are waiting on the LMA's Working Sub-Group on Transition Issues in Syndicated Loan Markets to produce draft provisions dealing with the transition to SONIA, their US counterpart, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) has already done so for SOFR, the US dollar risk free rate (RFR), in its recent consultation paper "Regarding More Robust LIBOR Fallback Contract Language for New Originations of LIBOR Syndicated Business Loans".

The ARRC's approach is likely to be influential for the LMA in relation to transitional drafting for USD (and potentially for other currencies as well in the interests of consistency). The highlights of the ARRC consultation paper include:

I recently authored the article "Documenting to Improve Regulatory Compliance," published by Trade Finance.

In the article I look at how, in a world of ever increasing regulation, there might be some areas in trade finance documentation where parties can show they are addressing concerns and taking steps to protect their position against a review by Regulators of what they are doing. The article looks at the position under English law and in light of current and future UK regulations.

By Amanda Montano, Sullivan Associate and Fiona Luong, Sullivan Trainee

Having been instructed by BAFT to prepare the revised Master Participation Agreement, Sullivan’s London Trade Finance team gave a presentation on ‘All you need to know about the BAFT MPA’ at the firm’s September Seminar.

Attended by an audience of more than 100 financial institutions and participants in the trade finance market, Geoff Wynne and Hannah Fearn talked about the key changes and implications of the new MPA.

I am very pleased to tell you that Robert Franklin has joined the firm. Robert is a former colleague and joins us as senior counsel in the finance team in London, where his role is to expand and help lead the project finance practice.

From Tuesday 4^th to Thursday 6^th September 2018, ITFA, the International Trade and Forfaiting Association, a worldwide trade association for companies, financial institutions insurers and intermediaries engaged in trade and forfaiting, hosted its 45^th Annual International Trade and Forfaiting Conference in Cape Town.

by Hannah Fearn, Sullivan Managing Associate and Fiona Luong, Sullivan Trainee

BAFT (the Bankers Association for Finance & Trade), together with ITFA (the International Trade and Forfaiting Association), established a working group to review and identify amendments to the original 2008 English law Master Participation Agreement (2008 MPA), to bring it in line with current market practice.

Hello, and welcome to Sullivan’s newest blog, Talking Trade Finance.

The blog will feature industry insight and analysis from our market-leading, London- and New York-based Trade & Export Finance Group.