We have previously drawn attention to the Scottish Law Commission's proposed reforms to the law of moveable transactions.
These reforms would modernise assignation of claims and fixed security over tangible moveables, intellectual property, shares and other financial instruments, as well as introduce efficient online registers as an optional perfection mechanism. This would radically improve the Scottish approach to receivables, asset and technology finance and real estate finance backed by lease portfolios, permit fixed security over Scottish shares without going on the register of members and facilitate certain securitisation and financial collateral transactions.
Hamish Patrick, Andrew Kinnes and Neil Campbell in Shepherd and Wedderburn's banking and finance team have been involved with these reforms for many years. More recently they have been liaising closely with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders following the government's announcement last autumn that they would be consulting further on these reforms.
The Scottish Parliament's Economy, Energy & Fair Work Committee has also taken an interest in the reforms and Hamish Patrick gave evidence to the committee in November, following on from which the committee issued a further call for evidence which concluded on 17 April. It had been hoped that legislation to implement the reforms would be introduced this autumn and, while COVID-19 has inevitably caused a lot of changes to the activities of the Scottish Government, we remain hopeful that the reforms will be taken forward as swiftly as practicable.
Hamish Patrick is Head of Financial Sector and a Partner in Shepherd and Wedderburn's banking and finance team.
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