Imagine the scene. Talk over drinks after an ACT Regional Group meeting. Treasurers, bankers, financial services firms. A knot of people discussing rating agencies’ newly published comments on companies’ liquidity/bank back-up lines and the agencies’ comments on loan agreement default and Material Adverse Change (MAC) clauses. They ask why there is no good UK case law on MAC clauses etc. Large numbers of treasurers, bankers rating agency analysts and so on have come into the trade since the 1980s.Why things are as they are must be puzzling.