Help save the environment, time and money!

The expanding regulatory landscape in which special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that issue CLOs operate in, brings with it the need for ever more paperwork. When coupled with the sizeable amount of paperwork associated with litigation and settlements that SPVs can become involved with, this has resulted in a surprisingly large uptick in the volume of physical mail being received by fiduciary service providers in the Cayman Islands over the last few years. Literally truckloads.

While the Maples Group has policies and procedures in place to ensure that physical mail is forwarded at the earliest opportunity upon receipt, both physically and electronically by email, to our manager contacts and trustees, it nonetheless remains the case that physical, or "snail", mail can take days, weeks or, in some extreme circumstances, even months to reach our offices in the first place given the vagaries of the international postal service and the natural as well as logistical challenges now facing international mail services.

Given all parties should have aligned interests to send and receive information in the most efficient, timely and cost effective manner, changing notification provisions in CLO documentation to allow for email delivery is in everyone's interests. While legacy deals may have restrictions on amending their notice provisions, taking this step for current and future deals advances the message that we are all responsible for seeking ways to implement measures that are environmentally friendly where we can. Email is also a more timely and efficient means by which to forward information, especially in cases where delivery of that information is time critical. Furthermore, it saves significant associated costs (monetary and environmental) of physical mail that range from postage stamps, envelopes, courier costs, fuel costs (to collect and deliver) as well as the human resources deployed in sorting, scanning and shredding physical mail.

We therefore encourage, wherever possible, that notices and other information be sent to the SPV issuers electronically, either by email or by fax, and that notice provisions in CLO deal documentation going forwards be updated to provide for electronic means of communication only, or by specifying that electronic communication is the preferred means.

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