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Lectio praecursoria: Secured Credit in Europe: From Conflicts to Compatibility

JFT 1–2/2016 s. 218–221
1.4.2016
Lyhyempi kirjoitus

The text is based on the introductory lecture delivered at the public examination of the author’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Helsinki. Pledges of different kinds, fixed and floating charges, enterprise charges, mortgages for means of transport, security transfers of ownership, security assignments, retention of title clauses – security rights over tangible movables and receivables come with diverse names, and in diverse juridical forms. Yet they all serve the same economic purpose: to secure payment of a debt. Security rights are considered to be part of the necessary legal infrastructure of any market economy. They are believed to increase the availability of credit and to lower its cost, thus enabling and stimulating economic activity. Against this backdrop, it is striking that use of security rights in cross-border trade and finance is fraught with problems. Issues arise because the relevant laws greatly differ between jurisdictions, including within the European Union. As a combined effect of diverging substantive laws and the current, in many ways imperfect, conflict rules of private international law, a security right created in one jurisdiction may turn out to be unenforceable in another.

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