Feature

Comparing the recently adopted EU and US regulatory regimes on stablecoins, this article seeks to explain the legal approach, in those two jurisdictions, to the question of the legal feasibility of multi-issuance schemes, ie those involving the parallel circulation, in the EU and the US, of payment stablecoins of the same issuer, marketed as: (i) fungible (substitutable); and (ii) redeemable in either jurisdiction.

In this article, the authors consider whether DeFi can maintain its open, disintermediated ethos while integrating with compliance frameworks.

This article looks at some of the vulnerabilities that emerge from the growth of private credit, particularly in light of the systemic stability concerns that have been raised by the Bank of England in the UK, and other policymakers globally. It provides an understanding of the shift of key intermediation activities from banks to non-banks, the causes of this trend, and the challenges it poses to regulators. This article argues that the growth of private credit today has its roots in pre-2008 shadow banking, and it is ill-suited to address questions of access to finance for the real economy.

In this article, Ben Smiley and Helena Spector examine recent case law concerning the frequently thorny question of whether those who make high-value, sophisticated personal investments are “consumers” and/or are “professional clients” for the purposes of different legislation such as the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the FCA Handbook, and thus are entitled to the protections therein. The contest over these protections for high-value investors is likely to continue.

Cross-border supply chain finance (SCF) in the EU is critically vulnerable to legal uncertainty, primarily due to divergent member state rules governing receivable assignments, debtor defences, set-off and “true sale” characterisation. This fragmentation hinders enforceability, reduces advance rates (the amount of the loan advanced) and complicates recoveries, thereby exposing a significant structural gap within the Single Market. This article outlines a practical legal blueprint for a targeted EU SCF Regulation designed to address these challenges comprehensively. The proposed framework includes a clear conflicts-of-law rule for third-party effects and priority, calibrated debtor-defence and set-off treatment and objective safe-harbour criteria for true sale. Furthermore, it details an interoperable electronic notice (e-notice) regime crucial for establishing opposability (when the debtor becomes officially aware of the new arrangement), fixing priority and preventing double-pledging across the EU. This harmonised approach promises to transform the current fragmented landscape into a predictable and enforceable cross-border market, fostering greater resilience, efficiency and liquidity in EU SCF operations.

This article reproduces the note prepared by The City of London Law Society Financial Law Committee and dated 27 November 2025¹ on the face value requirement for deeds in s 1(2)(a) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989.

In its proposed rules for a consumer redress scheme, the Financial Conduct Authority has assumed that few claims will be time-barred on the basis that s 32(1)(b) Limitation Act 1980 (deliberate concealment) will be engaged. In this article, Matthew Parker KC considers the further question of when under that provision the consumer could with reasonable diligence have discovered the relevant facts and the factual issues to which it gives rise.

This article proposes making certain targeted changes to UK law to facilitate securitisations using UK securitisation special purpose entities (SSPEs) by simplifying the legal framework in which they operate, including in some cases removing obsolete provisions from more than a century ago. 

The key argument of this article is that simplification and proportionate regulation can enhance legitimacy and clarity in financial regulation.

As regulatory stablecoin regimes multiply, the fate of stablecoins, both in their potential and their risks, lies in how stablecoins can move between regulatory systems. This article shows that some major jurisdictions have approached this issue in quite different ways.