Finanzinstrumente

The dematerialization of securities has been gaining ground all over the world. One of the most notable exceptions is Germany, where securities are still required to be evidenced by documents. Matthias Lehmann compares the situation under German law with that of other jurisdictions, in particular the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. He includes a taxonomy of financial innovations such as asset-backed securities, swaps or credit derivatives. The author claims that the legal categories used so far for these and other financial products do not square with economic reality. Against this backdrop, he develops a new concept of registered, incorporeal property rights, the so-called financial instruments. He outlines rules for their transfer and use as a security, and deals with conflict-of-laws and insolvency issues. For non-German readers, the book is of special interest because it contains a complete theory of financial instruments, a notion used in various international and European texts.