Secured Credit in Europe

Winner of the 2016–2018 KG Idman Prize.

This monograph seeks the optimal way to promote compatibility between systems of proprietary security rights in Europe, focusing on security rights over tangible movables and receivables. Based on comparative research, it proposes how best to tackle cross-border problems impeding trade and finance, notably uncertainty of enforceability and unexpected loss of security rights. It offers an extensive analysis of the academic literature of more recent years that has appeared in English, German, the Scandinavian languages and Finnish. The author organises the concrete means of promoting compatibility into a centralised substantive approach, a centralised conflicts-approach, a local conflicts-approach and a local substantive approach. The centralised approaches develop EU law, and the local approaches Member State laws. The substantive approaches unify or harmonise substantive law, while the conflicts approaches rely on private international law. The author proposes determining the optimal way to promote compatibility by objective-based division of labour between the four approaches. The objectives developed for that purpose are derived from the economic functions of security rights, the conditions for legal evolution and a transnational conception of justice.

This book is an important contribution to the future of secured transactions law in Europe and more widely. It will be of interest to academics, policymakers and legal practitioners involved in this field.

Introduction
I. Overview
II. Security Rights as Relational Legal Positions
III. Incompatibility: Cross-border Problems in Trade and Finance
IV. The Quest for Compatibility

1. Options: The Variety of Means to Promote Compatibility
I. Introduction
II. Thesis: The Centralised Substantive Approach
III. Antithesis: Gentler Approaches
IV. Search for Synthesis: The Integrated Approach
V. Conclusion

2. Objectives: The Essence of Desirable Development towards Greater Compatibility
I. Introduction
II. Epistemic Issues: Criteria for Choosing Objectives
III. The Objective of Foreseeability
IV. The Objective of Responsiveness
V. The Objective of Dividing Unforeseeability Costs
VI. Interrelations between Objectives
VII. Conclusion

3. Choices: Options Reviewed in the Light of Objectives
I. Introduction
II. The Centralised Substantive Approach
III. The Centralised Conflicts-Approach
IV. The Local Conflicts-Approach
V. The Local Substantive Approach
VI. Conclusion

Please follow link on right side of page to see full table of contents.

“Overall, there is a plethora of resources used here to construct the work, which is testimony to its origin as a serious academic endeavour ... In summary, the text would be particularly useful to policy-makers and those involved in the process of law reform from academic, judicial, practitioner or stakeholder backgrounds. For that reason, it can come recommended to all those interested in the asset-security and related fields.” –  Paul Omar, Gray's Inn, International Insolvency Review and Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation

“Dr Juutilainen's monograph provides a clear and useful theoretical analysis of the need for the modernisation of secured transactions laws in Europe.” –  Orkun Akseli, Durham Law School, Cambridge Law Journal