The Law Commission on England and Wales recently published the report of a scoping study on intermediated securities. The report is entitled, ‘Intermediated Securities: Who owns your shares?’. It examines the current market infrastructure and relies extensively on Dr Eva Micheler’s work on market infrastructure and intermediated securities holdings. Her work shows that shares are no longer held by investors directly. There are now chains of custodians that operate between investors and issuers. These chains disenfranchise investors and prevent them from enforcing claims against issuers.
The two articles relied on in the report can be found here:
Eva Micheler, ‘Custody Chains an Asset Values: why crypto-securities are worth contemplating’, (2015) Cambridge Law Journal 505, also available here.
Eva Micheler, ‘Intermediated Securities from the Perspective of Investors: Problems, Quick Fixes and Long-term Solutions’ in Louise Gullifer and Jennifer Payne, Intermediation and Beyond (Hart 2018) 237, also available here.