CBFL 10th Anniversary Seminar Series: Secured Transactions in Global Lawmaking by Professor Orkun Akseli, University of Manchester Law School

On 7 February 2025, the Centre for Banking and Finance Law (CBFL) was pleased to welcome Professor Orkun Akseli from the University of Manchester Law School to present his seminar titled “Secured Transactions in Global Lawmaking”. This seminar was the penultimate instalment in CBFL’s 10^th Anniversary Seminar Series and was moderated by Associate Professor Sandra Booysen, Director of CBFL.

Professor Akseli took the participants through a brief history of transnational lawmaking in the secured transactions law context. Pointing to some examples such as the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions, the UNICTRAL Model Law on Secured Transactions and the UNIDROIT Model Law on Factoring, Professor Akseli pointed to the increasing activity in the transnational secured transactions law sphere. However, the work being done by various bodies pointed to a fragmentation of secured transactions law and an increase influence of international financial institutions in the reform process.

He also discussed the mechanics and challenges of transnational law making. For instance, the resultant ‘law’ is not of one specific jurisdiction. While the principles may have been influenced by certain domestic laws, they may differ when it comes to the details. The use of “principles” as opposed to “rules” or “articles” is preferred as the latter reflect deeply rooted concepts which may not always be appealing to States. Key principles or fundamental policies on the other hand demonstrate how they are reflected in Model Laws which allow countries to draft their own rules within the framework of these principles. The goal of these instruments is to provide law reform toolkits domestically and to achieve efficiency and effectiveness of secured transactions law by, among others, promoting simplicity, clarity, certainty, accessibility, and expedition.

Reform, Professor Akseli observed, was typically driven by business and investment factors in a domestic context. The ease of cross-border transactions to achieve economic growth is yet another factor as is the increase in internationalisation and globalisation of financial markets. Sometimes, pressure to reform is imposed by peer jurisdictions or from international financial institutions. Success of law reform in a peer jurisdiction was often a good indicator of viable reform in a given jurisdiction.

Drawing from the above, Professor Akseli made the following tentative conclusions. Firstly, it is clear that legislative intervention is necessary in the modernisation of secured transactions laws. In his view, the work of law reform and global lawmaking needs to be inclusive. This means involving academia, practice, and industry across various jurisdictions with differing levels of legal or commercial development. Finally, while legal transplants may work, reform needs to be self-evolving and therefore the use of model laws as blueprints are fruitful.

Professor Akseli’s profile may be found here.

The Centre for Banking and Finance Law was launched on 12 September 2014. To find out more about other CBFL events, including those in the 10^th Anniversary Seminar Series, please click here.