In a proceeding relating to interest rate derivatives, a financial entity needed an expert report to clarify, with a strictly technical approach, whether the transactions contracted by a company truly responded to a logic of hedging (and, if applicable, improvement of financial cost) or whether there were elements that could question their suitability and correct execution.
The case revolved around two interest rate swaps: one conceived as hedging and the other as hedging with improvement of rates/financial cost. The assignment required converting the description of a complex product into a comprehensible and, above all, verifiable explanation, in order to defend conclusions with documentary and numerical traceability.
From the beginning, the work was approached as an independent and purely technical expert analysis, oriented to answer specific questions: how a swap works, why it is contracted, what is its economic rationale, and if, at the time of signing, the product was appropriate for the counterparty’s profile.
Methodologically, martinsdelima structured the analysis in several layers: evaluation of the technical characteristics of the derivative and the risks it covered (and if, in addition, it reduced costs), scenario analysis, review of the profile/qualification of the signatories, and contrast of the documentation and explanations provided (including evidence of meetings, scenarios and risks, and the cost of cancellation).
The report also incorporated a quantitative block: calculation (if applicable) of the market value to identify possible implicit margins, and verification of the evolution and correction of payments/settlements, in addition to reviewing the context and information available at the time of contracting without falling into “ex post predictions.”
With this approach, the opinion was anchored in two defensible ideas: that these were contracts proposed as hedging (and hedging + improvement) and that the expert objective was to prove that they had been carried out correctly and that they were appropriate at the time of their signing. That rigor—clear explanation + numerical verification + traceability—is what turns a report into a truly useful tool to support the legal strategy and close the matter with a solid technical position.