Wanganui or Whanganui? Or both? Or neither.

I think the key phrases for BOTH to be satisfied are these:

For this contract to pay $1, the words Wanganui and Whanganui must appear in the official city name.

If the Government announces that either name may be used, and leaves the official name unspecified, that will not cause this contract to close at $1.

I think the only proper way to resolve this, is to find out exactly what the minister has instructed should be gazetted. The announcement so far as I have seen, is too ambiguous.

Is it possible all these contracts 'could' finish at $0 because none adequately meet the definition?

I don't think so. 'Other 'pays out $1 if the others close at $0.

The actual wording of the contract is:
"This contract pays $1 less the closing price for contracts CITY.WANGANUI, CITY.WHANGANUI and CITY.BOTH."

Is it possible all these contracts 'could' finish at $0 because none adequately meet the definition?

No. The CITYNAME stocks form a bundle of mututally exclusive stocks, which by definition cover all the possibilities.

The CITY.BOTH contract is to close at $1; CITY.WANGANUI, CITY.WHANGANUI and CITY.OTHER contracts to all close at $0. Decision to be posted on the blog shortly.

Thanks Admin.

Thanks admin for the prompt action.

I hate to throw punches after the bell, but I don't necessarily agree with the following (from the blog):

Even if today’s announcement is for two official names, to allow a distinction as relatively trivial as the use of the singular in referring to two official names to change a contract’s outcome would in our view be manifestly unjust. The contract expressly allowed for considerable variation in other similarly trivial ways: “super/subscripted letters in those names, the addition of some or all of macron, umlaut, slash or hyphen, will not affect this contract”. Although iPredict did not expressly anticipate the use of official names, in our view inclusion of that possibility would be entirely consistent with other items listed above.

I don't think that 'two official names' (or two 'alternative names', per LINZ) is a trivial departure from the contract. I think it is a fairly substantial departure from the norm of having a dual use in one official name, like Aoraki/Mt Cook. LINZ acknowledged themselves that this was rare, and would require some legislative change to work. Such is not the case for the run of the mill dual name.

Having said that, you note that "Today’s announcement is that the official name of the city currently called Wanganui will be Wanganui and Whanganui" - if indeed the one official name of the city is "Wanganui and Whanganui", then I would accept it as satisfied.

C'est la vie. Thanks again for tidying this one up so speedily.

I'm not convinced the decision is correct.

The contract for BOTH stated:
"For this contract to pay $1, the words Wanganui and Whanganui must appear in the official city name."

Notice the word 'and' is 180 degrees from word 'or' per the official announcement which stated:
"The Minister for Land Information has announced his decision to assign the alternative names Whanganui or Wanganui to the city."

Furthermore, the contract states:
"If the Government announces that either name may be used, and leaves the official name unspecified, that will not cause this contract to close at $1."

Certainly the first part of this clause has been met, being "If the Government announces that either name may be used", but has this part: "and leaves the official name unspecified" been satisfied?

Do we have an official name specified? If an official name has not been specified, then according to the terms of this contract, it should not close at $1. But it isn't that clear cut given the announcement.

Do we have a single official name or two official names? Is a single official name which incorporates both versions of the spelling the same thing as two official names with different spelling? If neither official name incorporates both versions of spelling, have the terms of this contract been met? I believe not. If the official name incorporates both versions (like Aorangi/Mt Cook) then the terms of the contract have been met.

The following statement:
"The Board will gazette the change following a minor amendment to the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008. The Act currently has the unintentional effect of requiring both alternate names to be used in official documents."
also supports that both names are not intended to be part of the official name. It seems the Government want to remove the requirement to use both names.

I don't see an argument for OTHER paying $1 a 'technicality' - I'm not convinced the terms of the BOTH contract have actually been met. I'm happy to stand corrected if the official name meets the definition of the BOTH contract, otherwise I remain unconvinced.....

I can't say I agree with today's decision.

This statement clearly indicates that both names will not be used:
"The Board will gazette the change following a minor amendment to the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008. The Act currently has the unintentional effect of requiring both alternate names to be used in official documents."

One could also equally argue that CITY.WHANGANUI should close at $1 because this is the official name required to be used by crown entities even though Wanganui is still able to be used as an alternate name.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2009 11:44PM by TraderV.

IMHO Black or white is not the same as black and white (gray).

Contracts: Meeting of the minds?
I believe after reading the judgement that BOTH became a limited use Catch all. But I believe when these contracts were written on here BOTH was not a designated catch-all. OTHER did that job. So unless the BOTH requirements are matched exactly it is knocked out. The rest of the Contracts go through the same process and if not satisfied exactly, to the contract, Its OTHER.

I believe the frustration felt by those in this forum would disappear if they could rely on a contract much the same as anyone could rely on the wording in any other contract. Ie if it isn't in the contract then it has no place in the discussion. There would be no need for discussion with lawyers, doctors, accountants, mad scientists etc. Save time and possible costs. Yes not everything will fit into the rigid structure I propose, but we would already have OTHER as an option to cover every other possible outcome.

In conclusion, admin, hire me for these tough decisions. I will be on-call anytime and will be happy to discuss all my radical ideas. But my hope is that if this approach is adopted these problems will not show up again and therefore we have a path going forward. I hope this makes sense. Seemed pretty black and white in my head.

LaxTrade, you suggest that iPredict hire you to make decisions... because you propose to make decisions hastily, on a simple basis, without research or taking into account the views of the people who are members, and possibly going against the true meaning of the contracts?

Where do I sign up??11?!!>??

Why was there such a rush to close this one? Too late now of course, but would it not have been better to see what was gazetted?

gr, i apologise, i tried to use my warped sense of humour and my post was too long so i will summarise:

My proposal is:

All contracts are completely literal. (eg BOTH=BOTH not BOTH=EITHER)
OTHER stocks cover every other instance.
(For gr) Research done prior to contract being written.

For those that went long on BOTH. The result is what it is. I'm not worried, you did well!

I would hope my proposal would provide certainty in stock investment. Its that simple.

LaxTrade, I understand where you're coming from. There was definitely an argument that OTHER should have closed at $1 instead of BOTH. But if you take a step back and remember that Wanganui now has two official names, Whanganui and Wanganui, it's pretty hard to quibble with BOTH closing at $1.

I don't think, however, that simply saying "interpret the contract literally" is the answer. In fact, I don't think there really is "an answer", especially when you are searching for certainty in respect of contracts drafted to cover future, and therefore unknown, events.

Contracts often have latent ambiguities and uncertainties: that's just a risk that every party to a contract has to take, and is one reason why the courts are so busy. If literal interpretation provided certainty, businesses would have picked up on this by now! Of course, some contracts are better written than others. But hindsight is always 20/20. And, to be fair to iPredict, draft contract definitions are regularly posted so that traders can help identify possible fishhooks in advance.

I think, in the end, the whole situation was handled pretty well.

Would this post today by Laws change anything here:

"Michael Laws
Spelling of Wanganui: Bit irritated that the SST would re-edit today's column and add an 'h' to Wanganui but ... newsflash to ALL news editor. The legislation required to gazette the Minister's decision on the dual spelling of Wangas, HAS NOT HAPPENED. In fact, it will require a special law with that specific purpose and it may not even be introduced until next year. So - it's still officially 'WANGANUI'!"

which then follows by a viewer

"While the Whanganui/Wanganui alternative naming will not be official until the legislation has passed and the name has been Gazetted, as neither name is currently an official name there is no legal reason why either name or both names cannot be used now.Ref: www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/consultation-decisions/a-to-z/whanganui/faq.aspx"