The next step would be to determine, by a similar process (unless directly observable in the case of a loan from a third party), the interest rate payable with the benefit of the explicit guarantee. The interest spread can be used in quantifying the benefit gained by the borrower as a result of the guarantee. In determining the extent of the benefit provided by the guarantee, it is important to distinguish the impact of an explicit guarantee from the effects of any implicit support as a result of group membership. See Example 2 at paragraph 1.187. The benefit to be priced is not the difference between the cost to the unguaranteed borrower on a stand-alone basis and the cost with the explicit guarantee but the difference between the cost to the borrower after taking into account the benefit of any implicit support and the cost with the benefit of the explicit guarantee ...

A borrower would not generally be prepared to pay for a guarantee if it did not expect to obtain an appropriate benefit in return. Even an explicit guarantee will not necessarily confer a benefit on the borrower; for example, banking covenants applicable to a parent or other MNE group member’s debt facilities can include the default of another MNE group member as an event that may cause the termination of a facility or other adverse consequences. Other legal, financial or operational ties may mean that it would not be possible to abandon the borrower if it encounters financial difficulty without the MNE group suffering a credit rating downgrade. Any of these circumstances may produce the practical result that MNE group members are financially interdependent quite apart from any formal guarantee arrangement, so that the economic risk of the guarantor may not change materially on it giving an explicit guarantee. In other words, the formal guarantee may represent nothing more than an acknowledgement that it would be detrimental to the interests of the MNE group not to support the performance of the borrower. In such circumstances the guaranteed borrower is not benefitting beyond the level of credit enhancement attributable to the implicit support of other MNE group members and no guarantee fee would be due ...

By providing an explicit guarantee the guarantor is exposed to additional risk as it is legally committed to pay if the borrower defaults. Anything less than a legally binding commitment, such as a “letter of comfort” or other lesser form of credit support, involves no explicit assumption of risk. Each case will be dependent on its own facts and circumstances but generally, in the absence of an explicit guarantee, any expectation by any of the parties that other members of the MNE group will provide support to an associated enterprise in respect of its borrowings will be derived from the borrower’s status as a member of the MNE group. For this purpose, whether a commitment from one MNE group member to another MNE group member to provide funding to meet its loan obligations, constitutes a letter of comfort or a guarantee depends on all the facts and circumstances, including whether the commitment provides the creditor relevant legal rights to enforce the commitment. The benefit of any such support attributable to the borrower’s MNE group member status would arise from passive association and not from the provision of a service for which a fee would be payable. See paragraph 7.13 on passive association ...

This section elaborates on the effect of group membership on determining the arm’s length price of financial guarantees, building upon the principles laid out in Section C.1.1 ...

Where the effect of an intra-group guarantee as accurately delineated is to reduce the cost of debt-funding for the borrower, it might be prepared to pay for that guarantee, provided it was in no worse a position overall. In considering the borrower’s overall financial position as a result of the guarantee, its cost of borrowing with the guarantee (including the cost of the guarantee and any associated costs of arranging the guarantee) would be measured against its non-guaranteed cost of borrowing, taking into account any implicit support. Borrowing with a guarantee might also affect terms and conditions of the loan other than price; each case will depend on its own facts and circumstances ...

By providing an explicit guarantee the guarantor is exposed to additional risk as it is legally committed to pay if the borrower defaults. Anything less than a legally binding commitment, such as a “letter of comfort” or other lesser form of credit support, involves no explicit assumption of risk. Each case will be dependent on its own facts and circumstances but generally, in the absence of an explicit guarantee, any expectation by any of the parties that other members of the MNE group will provide support to an associated enterprise in respect of its borrowings will be derived from the borrower’s status as a member of the MNE group. For this purpose, whether a commitment from one MNE group member to another MNE group member to provide funding to meet its loan obligations, constitutes a letter of comfort or a guarantee depends on all the facts and circumstances, including whether the commitment provides the creditor relevant legal rights to enforce the commitment. The benefit of any such support attributable to the borrower’s MNE group member status would arise from passive association and not from the provision of a service for which a fee would be payable. See paragraph 7.13 on passive association ...

This section elaborates on the effect of group membership on determining the arm’s length price of financial guarantees, building upon the principles laid out in Section C.1.1 ...