Doing Finance in Austria; An LMA-like credit agreement with comments; An LMA-like credit agreement with comments

In recent years the design of credit agreements in Austria for transactions with corporate borrowers has changed. Traditionally credit agreements introduced by Austrian banks for corporate borrowers were short and simple and contained only those rules that seemed most important to the lending banks. In large volume finance transactions banks active in Austria increasingly seek to syndicate their commitments with other banks as syndicate partners. The London based Loan Market Association (LMA), a think tank for syndicated loan markets established in 1996, continuously develops model finance agreements that are widely used in syndicated loan markets. Today Austrian banks increasingly resort to these model agreements as a starting point to draft LMA-like credit agreements gov-erned by Austrian law even if syndication is not required. Based on the text of a sample agreement the author discusses the essential provisions of a credit agreement and their impact for the lender and the borrower.