The French Adaptation of MLETR

In France, the term “negotiable titles” had referred to both financial negotiable securities such as stocks or bonds, as well as commercial negotiable titles such as bills of lading, bills of exchange, promissory notes, endorsable insurance certificates, and warrant receipts.

Although a 1981 law enshrined the dematerialization of financial securities by removing the possibility for companies to issue paper securities and establishing that ownership of securities must result from registration in an account (a system which has since been extended to electronic recording), the evolution to dematerialization of negotiable commercial titles has been a slow process.

Following the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, UK, in June 2021 and publication of a white paper on the Challenges and Opportunities of Digitalization of International Trade by ICC France in June 2022 the French government entrusted a working group comprised of representatives from the private sector (banks, carriers, traders and lawyers) and public sector (Ministries of Economy, Justice, Foreign Trade) with the task of reviewing the principles established by the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR).