Individuals and enterprises are continually exposed to risk because of future events beyond their control. The outcome of those events can either positively or negatively impact on their wellbeing.
Individuals and enterprises should generally prefer not to face exposure to the possibility of adverse consequences, regardless of their perception of the likelihood of such events occurring. It is in their interest to consider foregoing `resources` they currently possess if doing so would reduce the possibility of being so greatly exposed to future outcomes.
Risk can take many forms in view of the large range and type of future events which might result in adverse consequences. Risk can be categorised, in one instance, as `economic` in nature. Phenomena that constitute economic risk include: commodity prices, currency exchange rates, interest rates, property prices, share prices, inflation rates, company performance, and market event based indices.
Another characterisation of risk concerns `technical` phenomena. This can include things like the breakdown of an electricity generation plant, aircraft engine failure, and the damage to, or failure of, orbiting telecommunications satellites. The outcomes for each of these phenomena will be adverse for the users and/or supplier.
Other forms of risk defy ready characterisation, such as weather-based (viz., rain damage or lightning strike), or other natural occurrences (viz., earthquakes or iceberg collision with sea-going vessels).
There are also less tangible risks associated with, for example, the emission of atmospheric pollutants or the disposal of intractable toxic wastes, in the sense that the future consequences are unknown, save that there is a notion, based on current information, that they could be adverse.
The capability to manage risk is more important today than it was in the past, and is likely to become ever-more important into the future, because there is an ever increasing exposure to a wider generic range of future phenomena beyond the control of individuals or enterprises. There is also a wider feasible range of possible future events, and greater uncertainty about the likelihood of occurrence, associated with any single future phenomenon viz., an increasing volatility.
It is also thought that individuals are now more risk-averse in recessionary times, when there are fewer available discretionary resources to trade-off to protect themselves from such adverse future events.
In the prior art, individuals and enterprises faced with `technical` risk have hedged against future outcomes by mechanisms such as the adoption of quality assurance practices, warranties, increased research and development activity (and associated intellectual property rights such as patents, utility models and registered designs), the purchase of modernised plant and equipment, and improved inventory, occupational health and safety and employer/employee relations practices.
Consider a manufacturer of, say, integrated circuits (ICs), which has many clients wishing to purchase its ICs. The demand may result in a delay in delivery due to limited manufacturing capacity, thereby requiring advance production scheduling for orders already in-hand. Typically, the manufacturer will give a warranty to a purchaser as to measurable performance criteria for its ICs; if a batch does not perform to the specified criteria, the manufacturer is required by contract to replace that batch. That is, a purchaser may have no interest in obtaining monetary compensation for the poor quality ICs, as the purchaser needs the components for their own products. In that case, the `consideration` the warranty makes is the priority scheduling of a substitute batch of that type of IC, possibly displacing other scheduled production runs, or deferring delivery to another purchaser.
Such contractual arrangements are piece-meal in nature, and can only be struck between the manufacturer and each individual purchaser. They also leave the manufacturer exposed to claims from other customers whose orders are delayed by the re-scheduling. The manufacturer has no convenient mechanism available to it to hedge against such claims, perhaps by way of reserving production rights with another manufacturer, in lieu of unavailability of their own manufacturing facility.
In the face of such `economic` risk, it is known for individuals and enterprises to hedge against adverse outcomes by indirect means such as self-insurance, and directly by means such as futures contracts, forward contracts, and swaps.
There are disadvantages or limitations associated with such available economic risk management mechanisms. Particularly, they provide, at best, only indirect approaches to dealing with the risk management needs. The available mechanisms are relatively expensive, and provide limited phenomenon coverage, and therefore cannot meet the requirements of the party seeking to hedge against such wide-ranging future risk. The infrastructure and pay-out costs associated with switching between, say, a commodities market and a stock market are often prohibitive for entities small and large alike. As a consequence, entities find themselves saddled with obligations they have little control over and cannot escape.
In respect of the "less tangible" forms of risk, an example in the prior art of a form of management of that risk is that of `pollution rights` sold by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 1993 for the atmospheric emission of sulphur dioxide. This was done by an auction of "allowances" permitting the release into the atmosphere. By the year 1995, any company or organisation emitting sulphur dioxide in the U.S. without enough allowances to cover their total emissions will face prosecution. This means polluters must either buy further allowances, or else modify or replace their plant and equipment to reduce these emissions. The EPA will regulate the total number of allowances able to be obtained. The existing allowances have already become a valuable tradeable `property` as between sulphur dioxide emitters, that is, even before the time when no further allowances will be able to be purchased.
Management techniques for the `less tangible` forms of risk are in their infancy. The existing forms indicate an emerging demand for systems and methods to enable effective management.
Specific examples in the prior art of patents relating to methods and apparatus which deal with various forms of risk management include British Patent No. 2 180 380, in the name of Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith Incorporated, directed to an Automated Securities Trading Apparatus (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,004, and further related to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,346,442 and 4,376,978). Other examples include U.S. Pat. No. 4,739,478 assigned to Lazard Freres and Co., directed to Methods and Apparatus for Restructuring Debt Obligations, U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,640 assigned to Citibank, N. A., directed to An Automated Investment System, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,752,877, 4,722,055, and 4,839,804 assigned to College Savings Bank directed to Methods and Apparatus for Funding Future Liability of Uncertain Cost.
The present invention comes about in view of the shortcomings of existing risk management mechanisms, and the perceived increasing importance of the management of risk relating to specified, yet unknown, future events.
In this sense, the invention is directed to something having economic value to individuals, enterprises and societies as a whole. Methods and apparatus that provide for the management of risk offer material advantages by, for example, minimising adverse future outcomes, providing both a form of compensation in the event of adverse future outcomes, and forms of risk management not otherwise supported or available in the prior art, and thus have value in the field of economic endeavour.