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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
- On fictions, gaps in the law, and the uncertainty of the securities trade
The legislation regulating the handling of account-based securities is based on the fiction that they are physical objects, when they in fact are electronic registrations in data systems. This fiction entails ambiguities and thereby risks in regard to liability and ownership of securities. This is what Karin Wallin-Norman, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Law, Stockholm University, finds in her dissertation Account Rights - The Right to Account-based Securities, in which she posits an entirely new way of looking at securities as articles of property.
Today most securities exist only as registrations in data systems that communicate with other data systems and are operated by financial actors. Only the person who controls the computer itself and its programs has the capacity to influence and control what will happen. Only the person who maintains the register can actually determine whether a registration exists, what is registered, by whom, and when this took place, as well as - not least - how this electronic registration is to be expressed in a language that can be understood by those with a stake in the registration. The person who decides and controls all this in practice is the account keeper, that is, the person normally referred to as the account manager.
In practice, the owner of the securities is entirely at the mercy of the account keeper. In spite of this, the responsibility of the account keeper has not received enough attention from legislators.
"In that securities are treated as if they were physical objects even though they are not, in many respects their accounting lacks any support in existing law. The status of the account owner is therefore legally uncertain. Moreover, the internationalization of securities trading has aggravated this lack of certainty," says Karin Wallin-Norman.
In her dissertation, Karin Wallin-Norman launches an entirely new legal concept - "account rights" - to denote the rights of the account owner in relation to the account keeper regarding financial instruments. For the account rights of investors to be effectively safeguarded, Karin Wallin-Norman maintains that regulation must be predicated upon and build on the fact that these financial instruments are held in accounts. Account rights should therefore be treated in property law as a special category of chattels alongside traditional laws regarding property.
Karin Wallin-Norman has worked as chief legal officer at VPC. In parallel with her dissertation work, she has participated as the Swedish expert in the creation of harmonized regulations for securities in Europe and around the globe. She is presently working as an independent consultant in Swedish and international securities law.
The public defense will take place on May 28 at 10:00 o'clock in Hall G, Ahrrenius Laboratories. The faculty examiner is assistant professor Claes Martinsson, Gothenburg University.
For further information
Karin Wallin-Norman, Department of Law, karin.wallin-norman@juridicum.su.se, cell phone: +46 (0)70-520 21 57.
For a picture
http://www.juridicum.su.se/jurweb/Karin_Wallin_Norman.jpg. or contact Staffan Westerlund at staffan.westerlund@juridicum.su.se, cell phone: +46 (0)73-784 50 31. The dissertation is published by Jure förlag.
Criteria of this press release:
Economics / business administration, Law
transregional, national
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English
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