States around the world are engaged in their internal processes to prepare for becoming parties to the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary. Plans are being discussed, in particular by Switzerland, the US and possibly Japan, for signing the Convention in the coming weeks or months. As regards the European Union, the European Commission is engaged in a study of a limited number of legal aspects of the Convention.
The European Council triggered this study mainly as the result of various assertions and questions raised about the Convention – primarily from within one state and one EU-wide financial oversight body. If meritorious, these assertions and questions would cast a cloud over the Convention. This development is surprising, as all then-member states of the EU (as well as the European Commission and the European Central Bank) actively participated...