Securities law 4 results

The EU Banking Union as outstanding regulatory regime in the 2010s influences private parties’ contract law –with claims against authorities, on markets with two new mega-trends. Firstly, the common good imposes itself much more against private gains. Secondly, private parties are more involved in responsibilities for the system and with claims based on it.

This doctoral research compares the retention of title in Belgium with the retention of title in the United States, Germany and two international instruments (the UNCITRAL legislative guide and model law on secured transactions and Book IX of the Draft Common Frame of Reference. It evaluates the application of the functional approach to retention of title and formulates recommendations concerning the regulation of retention of title in Belgian law.

This comparative research was triggered by the assessment of property registration law published in the World Bank Doing Business reports (DB). The international and interdisciplinary team aimed to assess how legal certainty was imagined and put in practice in French and English law, using commercial real estate as a case study.

There is an increasing debate on the way in which the EU has developed and what it must look like in the future. This debate includes a discussion on one of the core aspects of European integration: at which level should the rules be set and who decides where the authority to do so should lie? Private law has an important role to play in this discussion. Many private law rules touch on the core of the internal market as they serve to foster trade or to offer protection to market participants, such as consumers.