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Anything but equity! Structuring considerations for a debt for equity swap
There are several regulatory and practical reasons why some creditors may not be able or willing to take up an allocation of equity post-restructuring. In this article the authors explore some of those reasons and provide some potential structuring solutions.
20 March 2024Protection of securities under custody in Spain
There is no scope for trusts under current Spanish law; they neither exist nor are recognised in the jurisdiction. Incorporating them into Spanish law would require a substantial transformation of Spanish property law. At the same time, it is not even truly clear whether trusts are indeed a bulletproof solution in the context of safeguarding securities under custody. In any case, Spanish law provides for a set of measures designed to safeguard securities held under custody, particularly traded securities held under custody by an entity participating in Iberclear, the Spanish central securities depository.
20 March 2024Blockchain interoperability: connecting decentralised infrastructure for traditional finance
In this article, Tom Marshall explains the meaning of interoperability in the context of blockchains, existing infrastructure and why and how traditional finance is getting involved.
20 March 2024Cryptoassets as property under English Law: surveying the present lie of the land
In this article, Amy Held draws attention to two ways in which fundamental principles of English property law are being distorted in the present discourse on crytpoassets. First, English law is not really prescriptive as to what “things” fall within the scope of property law or “can be property”, but, rather, is concerned with rights in relation to things. The statement, therefore, that cryptoassets “are property” lacks any real meaning. Second, English law has no real concept of “ownership” as distinct from “possession”. Given that English law tends to focus on the latter, it remains unclear what it means for anyone to assert that they are the “owner” of a cryptoasset, how “ownership” is proved and established, and how the right of “ownership” is vindicated in a dispute.
20 March 2024Pre-hedging versus front-running: six of one, and half a dozen of the other?
Institutions which provide market liquidity, such as banks, are in possession of very valuable confidential client data – their trading intentions. Trading intentions can generate revenue for the bank with little or no risk. This requires the bank to trade for its own account using the client’s confidential information before it trades for the client. This behaviour is generally given two labels: “front-running”, which is considered to be illegitimate, and “trading-ahead”, which is thought to be legitimate. However, their effects are often identical which should imply that their legitimacy should also be the same.
20 March 2024Supervisory tone sharpens further following ECB’s conclusions on its Desk Mapping Review
In this article, Dr Michael Huertas considers the impact on non-EU headquartered banking entities of the findings of the ECB-SSM’s Desk Mapping Review (Review). The Review assesses the governance and risk management capabilities of the EU operations of such non-EU headquartered entities.
20 March 2024Financial collateral arrangements in the digital asset world
This article covers three issues: (i) which kinds of digital assets (arguably) fall within the Financial Collateral Arrangements (No. 2) Regulations 2003 (FCARs); (ii) what is likely to constitute “possession or control” of a digital asset for the purpose of the FCARs (where a security financial collateral arrangement is involved); and (iii) whether the FCAR regime is appropriate in the digital asset context (and whether there needs to be a separate regime that applies specifically to digital assets).
20 March 2024UK securities fraud litigation gains momentum: Autonomy and G4S
This article examines two recent decisions in securities fraud cases: (i) ACL Netherlands v Lynch [2022] EWHC 1178 (Ch) (Autonomy); and (ii) Allianz Global Investors GmbH v G4S Limited [2022] EWHC 1081. The former considered such important questions as what published information is caught by s 90A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), how statements in such information are to be construed, what constitutes the requisite guilty knowledge and how reliance is to be proved. In the latter case, the court held that so-called “person discharging managerial responsibility” (PDMR) status in these claims is limited to English law concepts of directorship but emphasised the potential elasticity of de facto directorship in particular.
20 March 2024Transferring legal title to a digital asset
In this article, Hin Liu considers what should be required to transfer legal title to a digital asset. He argues that the requirement should be a “change of control” coupled with an intention to transfer title, and that it would be inappropriate to require an “on-chain transfer”.
19 March 2024Bind to law: Soulbound tokens and property law
Soulbound tokens (SBTs) are a novel type of crypto-token. They are not intended to be treated as liquid, transferable items, but instead as verifiable and non-alienable repositories of provenance-secure information related to specific people. SBTs are intended to be non-transferable – but because of the technological medium within which they are created, they are generally transferable as a matter of fact. This article considers whether it is justifiable to treat this type of token as an object of property rights. It suggests that property law could help to achieve what technical design alone cannot – the non-transferability of SBTs. While the ability to transfer the token might remain as a matter of fact, SBTs might achieve non-transferability as a matter of law, through the application of property law concepts such as relativity of title and the bona fide purchaser rule.
19 March 2024
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