Property Rights over Money: the Italian Perspective and English Law

Abstract

Abstract The work considers money in a different way depending on whether it is used as a means of payment or for other functions. Only in the first case it comes to evidence a characteristic proprietary regime which cuts across the different categories of property by which money assets are represented. In the other cases, money should be considered simply as a fungible asset. However, rules of specification of fungibles should be reconsidered. Specifically, the paper deals with the issues arising in transactions where money is transferred to an intermediary for management. It aims to show that the transferor or the beneficiary keeps real interests in the money transferred. It argues how these interests may be relevant to Italian law, by comparing it with the English legal system. The paper demonstrates that reference to property law may be useful for evaluating the quantum of rights of the transferor of money by referring to the concept of value and by the analysis of law of mixtures under the Italian and the English law. The analysis is worked out in terms of corporeal money but argues that law reaches equivalent outcomes for incorporeal money in the field under consideration.