Dr Philipp Paech

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

The law of the traditional financial market sectors of insurance, commercial banking, derivatives, capital markets and asset management are converging in practice, but their academic analysis is still largely sector-based. The main goal of this course is to offer a cross-sectoral, functional understanding of the commercial, property and insolvency law of finance, permitting students to grasp the big picture and apply acquired understanding to very diverse legal constellations in finance. The course also highlights certain anomalies in differing legal treatment of the respective sectors or certain types of transactions that induce regulatory arbitrage, Further, students will acquire the ability to identify and put into context key trends in finance.

The course provides an overview of the substantive law aspects (UK, EU and international) of international financial and business transactions. The focus is mainly on broad principles and policy issues rather than a detailed examination of statute, case law and drafting. However, where appropriate, legal concepts and market practice will be explained by reference to case law and other legal sources. The course is designed to be as topical as possible, and the content may change in the light of developments. While the precise topics covered will vary from year to year they typically will include the following:

- Introduction:

Logic and players of the financial market

Overview of types of financial transactions

Reasoning and sources of financial law and regulation

The different types of risk and the role of financial law

European and global legal and regulatory architecture

- Raising capital:

Taking risk through funded positions

The nature of banks, deposit taking, loans, syndicated loans

Issuance of debt securities, eurobonds and equity

Investment funds

Cross-comparison of funded positions, common patterns and differences

- Mitigating risk:

Simple financial positions (guarantee, insurance, derivatives and credit default swaps)

Close out netting, clearing

Financial collateral

- Insolvency policy:

Preferential treatment of financial firms

- Cross-jurisdictional analysis:

Private international law analysis in financial law

International bank insolvencies

- Specific constellations:

Intermediated securities and cross-border collateral

Securitisation

Crypto assets, blockchain and other FinTech-related issues

This course will have two hours of teaching content each week in Michaelmas Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term.

Students will be asked to submit a 2,000 word essay during Michaelmas Term. A voluntary mock exam is also offered.

A detailed reading list will be made available on Moodle prior to teaching.

Recommended general reading: (a) Joanna Benjamin, Financial Law, Oxford University Press, 2007; (b) Colin Bamford, Principles of International Financial Law, Oxford University Press, 2011; (c) Philip Wood, Law and Practice of International Finance (University Edition) 2007, Sweet&Maxwell; (d) S. Valdez, Ph. Molyneux, An Introduction to Global Financial Markets, 6th ed., Palgrave-McMillan, 2010 (this last one is not a legal work but ideal for understanding market practice).

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours, reading time: 15 minutes) in the summer exam period.