Intermediation and Beyond
Intermediation and Beyond

Author: Louise Gullifer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1509919910

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The global shift from the direct holding of securities by investors to the current intermediated holding system raises many important legal issues. These include the impact of the intermediated holding system on the rights of investors, and the enforcement of those rights against intermediaries and issuers. The cross-border nature of many holding patterns adds another layer of complexity to these issues, and reduces legal certainty. Against this, intermediation offers benefits for many investors, including the ability to hold a cross-border portfolio with one intermediary, a reduction in costs and the facilitation of the use of securities in the collateral, repo, and securities lending markets. This book covers a number of legal topics relating to intermediated securities including the history of intermediation, the benefits and problems in the current intermediated holding system, and how future legal and technological developments could help to resolve these problems while retaining the benefits of intermediation. It also examines the possible impact of FinTech on this area, in particular the potential for Blockchain to be used in the issuing, holding and settlement of securities, the extent to which this will solve some of the difficulties that currently exist, and whether the use of Blockchain will create new difficulties that will need to be overcome. This book, which originated in a series of workshops organised by the Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, will appeal to those interested in financial and corporate law, including academics, practitioners, policy makers and students.

Intermediated Securities
Intermediated Securities

Author: Louise Gullifer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2010-06-17

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1847318010

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Globally, there has been a shift from securities being held directly by an investor, to a situation in which many securities are held via an intermediary. The existence of one or more intermediaries between the investor and the issuer has a potentially significant impact on the rights of the investor, the role and obligations of the issuer, and on the position and responsibilities of the intermediary. However, different jurisdictions have dealt with the issues arising from intermediation in a variety of ways. In the UK, for example, the concept of a trust is used to explain the different rights and obligations which arise in this scenario, whereas in the US the issues have been addressed by legislation, in the form of UCC Article 8. This variety is problematic, given that it is possible for an investor to hold securities in a number of different jurisdictions. A new UNIDROIT Convention on the issue of Intermediated Securities, the Geneva Securities Convention 2009, aims to create a common framework for dealing with these issues. This collection of essays explores the issues that arise when securities are held via an intermediary, and in particular assesses the solutions put forward by the new Convention on this issue. It will be essential reading for practitioners and academics.

Investment Management, Stewardship and Sustainability
Investment Management, Stewardship and Sustainability

Author: Iris H-Y Chiu

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-02-09

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 1509953779

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This book brings together thought leadership from academia and leading figures in asset management in key global jurisdictions, to pool together insights regarding the transformative visions and challenges for modern investment management, as well as best practices that realise the policy objectives in regulation and soft law. The world of investment management is being challenged by new legal, regulatory and soft law developments to demonstrate that their practices cohere with the long-term needs of the saving population as well as public interest needs in financing global sustainability and social development. The chapters in this book uniquely bring together the views of academia and practice on the key developments that can transform the law and practice of investment management, including the EU's new sustainable finance reform package, the UK Stewardship Code 2020, and developments in the US regarding the fit between fiduciary law for investment management and modern sustainability concerns. The book brings together the best of both worlds–critical thoughtful perspectives from academia and qualitative insight from the investment management industry. It will be of interest to researchers in law, investment management, business and management, practitioners in the investment management industry and their legal advisers, and policy-makers in the EU, UK and beyond who are grappling with the appropriate governance paradigms for bringing about more sustainable outcomes globally.

The Limits and Logic of Agency Theory in Company Law
The Limits and Logic of Agency Theory in Company Law

Author: Jonathan Hardman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-09-12

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1040131603

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Agency theory is ubiquitous in company law. This book explores (a) the limits of such deployment, and (b) the logic of how to deploy it. The book makes five linked arguments in respect of the limits of agency theory in company law. First, it argues that agency theory has become so broad that it can be used to analyse most human relationships. Such breadth, though, comes at the expense of legal clarity: as agency relationships cover such a broad range of relationships, there are no normative legal conclusions that can be drawn merely from identifying such a relationship. Second, it argues that we need to differentiate more specific concepts with clearer legal implications, such as externalities, and the particular manifestation of moral hazard that appears in insurance dynamics. Third, it argues that considerable amounts of existing company law theory - which is ostensibly built from agency theory - is in fact based on a series of hidden value judgments at each stage of the analysis. Fourth, it argues that company law theory should use agency theory less to rebalance the discipline: agency theory has become hegemonic, which is dangerous for the discipline, obscures company law’s role in establishing incentives, undermines accountability, and reduces company law’s autonomy. The book then moves to the logic of agency theory and makes three arguments. First, it argues that we need to factor in the company, only apply agency theory to voluntary interactions, and foreground our value judgments when identifying agency relations to do it properly. Second, it argues that it is rational to incur agency costs when we perceive the benefits of doing so to outweigh the costs, meaning that agency costs can be facilitative and we should look to front-end them rather than universally minimise them. Third, it argues that this needs to be undertaken through mandatory laws. Exploring the external limits and internal logic of agency cost analysis, this book will be of interest to academics, students, and researchers of corporate and company law.

Digital Finance in Europe: Law, Regulation, and Governance
Digital Finance in Europe: Law, Regulation, and Governance

Author: Emilios Avgouleas

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-12-20

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 3110749513

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Global finance is in the middle of a radical transformation fueled by innovative financial technologies. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitization of retail financial services in Europe. Institutional interest and digital asset markets are also growing blurring the boundaries between the token economy and traditional finance. Blockchain, AI, quantum computing and decentralised finance (DeFI) are setting the stage for a global battle of business models and philosophies. The post-Brexit EU cannot afford to ignore the promise of digital finance. But the Union is struggling to keep pace with global innovation hubs, particularly when it comes to experimenting with new digital forms of capital raising. Calibrating the EU digital finance strategy is a balancing act that requires a deep understanding of the factors driving the transformation, be they legal, cultural, political or economic, as well as their many implications. The same FinTech inventions that use AI, machine learning and big data to facilitate access to credit may also establish invisible barriers that further social, racial and religious exclusion. The way digital finance actors source, use, and record information presents countless consumer protection concerns. The EU’s strategic response has been years in the making and, finally, in September 2020 the Commission released a Digital Finance Package. This special issue collects contributions from leading scholars who scrutinize the challenges digital finance presents for the EU internal market and financial market regulation from multiple public policy perspectives. Author contributions adopt a critical yet constructive and solutions-oriented approach. They aim to provide policy-relevant research and ideas shedding light on the complexities of the digital finance promise. They also offer solid proposals for reform of EU financial services law.

Blockchain and Private International Law
Blockchain and Private International Law

Author: Andrea Bonomi

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-11-13

Total Pages: 807

ISBN-13: 9004514856

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The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Blockchain is the first global mechanism for the transfer and storage of value. Despite being conceived as an alternative to state and law, the technology and its use cases raise many legal questions, most notably, regarding jurisdiction and applicable law with respect to transactions and assets recorded on the blockchain. The issue is complex given the decentralised nature of the network. In this volume, academics and practitioners from various countries try to provide detailed answers to these questions as they relate to crypto-assets, cryptocurrencies, crypto derivatives, stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), as well as specific transactions and issues, such as property rights, secured transactions, smart contracts and bankruptcy. With specific chapters on national approaches (Germany, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, United States), the volume explores the need and possibility for legal harmonisation of these issues through global fora, such as the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) UNIDROIT.

Instruments of EU Corporate Governance
Instruments of EU Corporate Governance

Author: Hanne S. Birkmose

Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.

Published: 2022-12-09

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9403541733

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European Company Law Series, Volume 19 Compelling new perspectives on corporate governance – including attention to increased shareholder engagement, long-term value creation, and sustainability – have given rise to major changes in the management of companies. Yet, until this book, there has been no systematic account of the legislative and soft law instruments designed to promote good corporate governance practices across the range of sizes and types of companies. The book analyses the various instruments that legislators and others have used to promote good corporate governance in European companies and assesses their value in practice. Nineteen well-known scholars of business and corporate law delve into how such issues and topics as the following are approached across the spectrum of corporate governance instruments available in Europe: corporate codes of conduct; procedural rules regulating how directors make decisions; rules on board composition and remuneration; regulating boards in small- and medium-sized enterprises; public enforcement of directors’ duties; how digitalisation may affect implementation of corporate governance instruments; reporting rules; rules on the empowerment of minority shareholders; the role of the general meeting; regulation of the market for corporate control; certifications; rules on liability of directors; and role of auditors and accountants. In its in-depth analysis of the benefits and potential disadvantages of each instrument and what may be achieved both at company level and generally, this book will prove of value to all concerned with promoting responsible corporate governance, whether in business, government, or academia.

Corporate Finance Law
Corporate Finance Law

Author: Louise Gullifer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 997

ISBN-13: 1509929185

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The third edition of this acclaimed book continues to provide a discussion of key theoretical and policy issues in corporate finance law. It has been fully updated to reflect developments in the law and the markets. One of the book's distinctive features is its equal coverage of both the equity and debt sides of corporate finance law, and it seeks, where possible, to compare and contrast the two. This book covers a broad range of topics regarding the debt and equity-raising choices of companies of all sizes, from SMEs to the largest publicly traded enterprises, and the mechanisms by which those providing capital are protected. Each chapter provides a critical analysis of the present law to enable the reader to understand the difficulties, risks and tensions in this area, and the attempts by the legislature, regulators and the courts, as well as the parties involved, to deal with them. The book will be of interest to practitioners, academics and students engaged in the practice and study of corporate finance law.

Strategic Asset Allocation
Strategic Asset Allocation

Author: John Y. Campbell

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2002-01-03

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 019160691X

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Academic finance has had a remarkable impact on many financial services. Yet long-term investors have received curiously little guidance from academic financial economists. Mean-variance analysis, developed almost fifty years ago, has provided a basic paradigm for portfolio choice. This approach usefully emphasizes the ability of diversification to reduce risk, but it ignores several critically important factors. Most notably, the analysis is static; it assumes that investors care only about risks to wealth one period ahead. However, many investors—-both individuals and institutions such as charitable foundations or universities—-seek to finance a stream of consumption over a long lifetime. In addition, mean-variance analysis treats financial wealth in isolation from income. Long-term investors typically receive a stream of income and use it, along with financial wealth, to support their consumption. At the theoretical level, it is well understood that the solution to a long-term portfolio choice problem can be very different from the solution to a short-term problem. Long-term investors care about intertemporal shocks to investment opportunities and labor income as well as shocks to wealth itself, and they may use financial assets to hedge their intertemporal risks. This should be important in practice because there is a great deal of empirical evidence that investment opportunities—-both interest rates and risk premia on bonds and stocks—-vary through time. Yet this insight has had little influence on investment practice because it is hard to solve for optimal portfolios in intertemporal models. This book seeks to develop the intertemporal approach into an empirical paradigm that can compete with the standard mean-variance analysis. The book shows that long-term inflation-indexed bonds are the riskless asset for long-term investors, it explains the conditions under which stocks are safer assets for long-term than for short-term investors, and it shows how labor income influences portfolio choice. These results shed new light on the rules of thumb used by financial planners. The book explains recent advances in both analytical and numerical methods, and shows how they can be used to understand the portfolio choice problems of long-term investors.