Use of Fund Resources—Side Letters

Confidentiality

• 1. The existence and content of side letters will be treated with the utmost confidentiality by management, Fund staff, and Executive Directors.

Definition of side letters

• 2. A side letter is a letter or other written communication from a member’s authorities to Fund management or staff containing confidential policy understandings complementary to or elaborating upon those in new or currently applicable letters of intent supporting a request for the use of Fund resources.

• 3. Understandings contained in side letters will not contradict or detract from those contained in the applicable letters of intent.

Use of side letters

• 4. Members requesting the use of Fund resources are encouraged to include all policy undertakings in letters of intent. Side letters will be used sparingly and only in those circumstances which the authorities consider, and management agrees, require such exceptional communication.

• 5. The use of side letters to keep certain understandings confidential can be justified only if their publication would directly undermine the authorities’ ability to implement the program or render implementation more costly. Accordingly, their use will normally be limited to cases in which the premature release of the information would cause adverse market reaction or undermine the authorities’ efforts to prepare the domestic groundwork for a measure.

• 6. While there is no presumption that particular kinds of measures would be conveyed in a side letter rather than a letter of intent, some matters that could in some cases be considered for inclusion in side letters would be: (i) exchange market intervention rules; (ii) bank closures; (iii) contingent fiscal measures; and (iv) measures affecting key prices.

Communication of side letters to the Executive Board

• 7. Fund staff will advise members’ authorities of this decision pertaining to the communication of side letters to the Executive Board before the authorities send side letters.

• 8. The Executive Board will consider any side letter in a restricted session soon after the relevant letter of intent is issued to the Board. At this session, each Executive Director’s constituency will be represented by only one person. A numbered copy of the side letter will be made available to each such representative and, at the end of the meeting, each copy will be returned. Staff will be present to answer any questions, including questions about the circumstances that justified the use of the side letter.

• 9. In principle, the full text of a side letter will be communicated to the Executive Board. However, at the request of the authorities, the Managing Director may delete from the copies to be communicated to the Board information of such specificity that:

  • (i) it is substantially immaterial to Executive Directors’ consideration of the request for the use of Fund resources; and

  • (ii) disclosure would: (a) seriously hamper the authorities’ capacity to conduct economic policy; or (b) confer an unfair market advantage upon persons not authorized to have knowledge of the information.

• 10. Information that might in specific cases be deleted under paragraph 9 above includes: figures regarding foreign exchange markets (e.g., exchange rate intervention triggers or amounts of intervention), names of specific banks or companies, or specific dates for the introduction of certain policy measures.

Communications about side letters by Executive Directors to members’ authorities

• 11. Executive Directors who decide to communicate information about a side letter to their respective authorities should: (i) limit the recipients to those who have a strict need to know; (ii) inform the recipients of the need to treat the information as highly confidential; and (iii) inform the recipients about the procedures that apply to the communication of side letters to the Executive Board under this decision.

• 12. Executive Directors that communicate information about a side letter to their respective authorities will inform promptly the Managing Director and the Executive Director for the member that sent the side letter of such communication.

Review

• 13. This decision will be reviewed by the Executive Board within one year, provided, however, that it will be reviewed promptly before that time if the confidentiality of any side letter has not been observed. (SM/99/236, 9/15/99)

Decision No. 12067-(99/108),

September 22, 1999