Intermediated securities: reflections on a new concept in French financial markets law

The global trend towards the dematerialisation of securities, combined with the increasingly international character of holding systems has revealed the extent to which credits to securities accounts will be dealt with and analysed in different ways by different national legal systems. Some legal systems have given way to operational reality by recognising credits to to securities accounts as distinct financial instruments ("intermediated securities"), others have maintained a more formal approach according to which credits are merely evidence of an interest in the underlying security. The French legal system now finds itself at a crossroads: to preserve legal form or yield to operational substance? This article examines the arguments for and against the legal recognition of "intermediated securities" in France.