A question of priorities: choice of law and proprietary aspects of the assignment of debts

Abstract

Among the fields of academic legal research, the topic of choice-of-law rules for the assignment of debts in financial services and markets must be one of the most complicated, challenging and arcane. But what is merely challenging in the academic arena becomes positively daunting when tested in the crucible of legislative reform, where there is little or no room for error. And if said legislative reform is to be accomplished within a tight timeframe in a highly political forum and to be drafted by civil servants rather than conflicts specialists or financial experts, the endeavour must be regarded not so much as difficult but virtually hopeless. Certainly that was the recent experience of the European Council's standing Working Group on Civil Law during the negotiations on the transposition of the Rome Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations 1980 into the European legal acquis as the putative Rome I Regulation.