The South African MPG Legal Workstream has published a form of ZARONIA Rate Switch Amendment Agreement for the syndicated loan market in South Africa. It is designed to amend syndicated ZAR single currency facility agreements governed by South African law to transition from JIBAR to ZARONIA. It incorporates the rate switch provisions from the LMA SA Rate Switch Agreement (which are based on the MPG ZARONIA loan conventions).  

As Good Friday approaches, we wanted to remind users to check the SIFMA calendar.  The LMA has optional wording in its documentation to have a historic RFR as an initial fallback to an RFR – this was due to circumstances where SOFR was not published on an RFR Banking Day and the fallbacks to SOFR became relevant.  This wording is being rolled out to the entire LMA suite.  View the LMA “Users guide to the interest rate provisions in the LMA facility agreements” for more details.

We have been receiving questions on Article 118-bis which requires loan agreements to include clauses dealing with changes to a benchmark.  This is impacting loan agreements, including outside of Italy.

Since mid-2024, we have been working proactively with our members on this, including through the EURIBOR Fallbacks Task Force. The LMA documentation published in December 2024 assists market participants with implementing robust EURIBOR fallbacks. We are working with the market on developments in implementation to assist with efficiency in the market.