On 7 April 2017, the European Commission published a consultation document on the conflict of laws rules for third party effects of transactions in securities and claims, in order to assess the practical problems arising from legal uncertainty in this area and to gather opinions on possibilities for improving such rules in furtherance of its Capital Markets Union Action Plan.
The Commission intends to address the legal uncertainty surrounding securities ownership in cases where the securities issuer and the investor are located in different Member States and/or securities are held by financial institutions in different Member States.
The Commission notes that another obstacle to cross-border investment results from differences in the national treatment of third party effects of assignment of debt claims that complicates their use as cross-border collateral, in particular as underlying receivables in securitisations, and makes it difficult for investors to price the risk of debt investments. The Commission is therefore proposing a possible legislative initiative that would give legal certainty as to which national law shall apply to securities ownership and to third party effects of the assignment of claims.
The deadline for responses to the consultation was 30 June 2017.
The full text of the consultation is available here:
http://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/2017-securities-and-claims-consultation-document_en.pdf
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