THE RISK OF RE-CHARACTERIZATION OF TITLE TRANSFER FINANCIAL COLLATERAL ARRANGEMENTS

In the European financial markets, the most common types of collateralised transactions are classic repos, sell/buy-backs and securities loans. In them all, financial collateral is provided under the title transfer method: in order to grant the collateral taker with a general right of disposal of collateral, the full legal title to financial collateral is transferred to the collateral taker. The title transfer financial collateral arrangements had prevailed in the European financial markets before the adoption of the Financial Collateral Directive (‘FCD’), and they remained dominant after its transposition into the laws of EU Member States. One of the aims of the FCD is to eliminate the so-called recharacterisation of such arrangements as security interests. The FCD is not quite clear on whether its provisions on title transfer financial collateral arrangements are concerned only with the full outright transfers of title or should they also be applied to fiduciary transfers of title. As the fiduciary transfer of title is in substance a form of a security interest, it should not be covered under the notion of title transfer financial collateral arrangement. The ambiguity of the notion of title transfer financial collateral arrangement has spilled over into laws of a couple of Members States, as for instance in the Croatian law. This paper argues that Croatian law extends the scope for possible recharacterisation of title transfer financial collateral arrangements, instead of eliminating the risk of recharacterisation of such arrangements as arrangements creating a security interest in the collateral.