The Official UCC Comments have not been submitted to nor approved by the Kansas Legislature and should not be construed as expressing legislative intent.
Article 1 was revised in its entirety in the 2007 session of the Kansas legislature by repealing all of the existing sections therein and replacing the same with sections that became effective on July 1, 2008. Conforming amendments were also made to other articles of the code.
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Summary Repossession, Replevin, Foreclosure of Security Interests," Thomas V. Murray, 46 J.B.A.K. 93, 94 (1977).
"Comparative Fault and Strict Products Liability in Kansas: Reflections on the Distinction Between Initial Liability and Ultimate Loss Allocation," William Edward Westerbeke and Hal D. Meltzer, 28 K.L.R. 25, 96 (1979).
"Researching Legislative Intent," Fritz Snyder, 51 J.K.B.A. 93, 95 (1982).
"Kansas Legislation Governing Credit Agreements Of Financial Institutions," George L. Calvert III, 59 J.K.B.A. No. 2, 19, 21 (1990).
Attorney General's Opinions:Continuation of financial statement; necessity of filing documents with secretary of state. 86-65.
Part 1.—GENERAL PROVISIONS
84-1-101 Short titles.Part 2.—GENERAL DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
84-1-201 General definitions.Part 3.—TERRITORIAL APPLICABILITY AND GENERAL RULES
84-1-301 Territorial applicability; parties' power to choose applicable law.Risk of loss and passing of title under UCC, Patrick L. Baude, 13 K.L.R. 565, 567 to 572 (1965).
Relating UCC to law of contracts, William G. Zimmerman, 14 K.L.R. 509 to 521 (1966).
"Executory Contracts and Bankruptcy: The Case for a Federal Common Law," Richard F. Broude, 17 K.L.R. 1, 16, 17 (1968).
"Lemon Aid for Kansas Consumers," Barkley Clark, 46 J.B.A.K 143 (1977).
"Underlying Philosophy of Article 2," John E. Murray, Jr., 21 W.L.J. 1 (1982).
"History of Warranties of Quality in Sale of Goods," Paul B. Rasor, 21 W.L.J. 175 (1982).
"Survey of Kansas Law: Secured Transactions," J. Eugene Balloun, 32 K.L.R. 351, 353 (1984).
"Proposed Amendments to Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code: The Tangled Web of Anticipatory Repudiation and the Right to Demand Assurances," Deanna Wise, 40 K.L.R. 287 (1991).
"Contract Law: A Clean Start for Lost Volume Lessees [Jetz Service Co. v. Salina Properties, 865 P.2d 1051 (Kan. Ct. App. 1993)]," Jonathan J. Lautt, 34 W.L.J. 136 (1994).
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Electronic Commerce in Kansas: Contract Formation and Formalities Under Article 2," Christopher R. Drahozal, 68 J.K.B.A. No. 5, 22 (1999).
Part 1.—SHORT TITLE, GENERAL CONSTRUCTION AND SUBJECT MATTER
84-2-101 Short title.Part 2.—FORM, FORMATION AND READJUSTMENT OF CONTRACT
84-2-201 Formal requirements; statute of frauds.Part 3.—GENERAL OBLIGATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF CONTRACT
84-2-301 General obligations of parties.Part 4.—TITLE, CREDITORS AND GOOD FAITH PURCHASERS
84-2-401 Passing of title; reservation for security; limited application of this section.Part 5.—PERFORMANCE
84-2-501 Insurable interest in goods; manner of identification of goods.Part 6.—BREACH, REPUDIATION AND EXCUSE
84-2-601 Buyer's rights on improper delivery.Part 7.—REMEDIES
84-2-701 Remedies for breach of collateral contracts not impaired.OFFICIAL UCC FOREWARD
Article 2A of the Uniform Commercial Code, along with Conforming Amendments to Articles 1 and 9, is presented, upon the recommendation of the Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code, by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute. It represents a major development in commercial law, addressing a type of business transaction, the leasing of personal property, that has long existed. Under present law, transactions of this type are governed partly by common law principles relating to personal property, partly by principles relating to real estate leases, and partly by reference to Articles 2 and 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, dealing with Sales and Secured Transactions respectively. The legal rules and concepts derived from these sources imperfectly fit a transaction that involves personal property rather than realty, and a lease rather than either a sale or a security interest as such. A statute directly addressing the personal property lease is therefore appropriate.
Such a statute has become especially appropriate with the exponential expansion of the number and scale of personal property lease transactions. Article 2A will apply to transactions involving billions of dollars annually. It will apply to consumer's rental of automobiles or do-it-yourself equipment, on the one hand, and to leases of such items as commercial aircraft (to the extent not preempted by federal law) and industrial machinery, on the other. The text recognizes the differences between consumer and business leasing, while resting upon concepts that apply generally to any personal property lease transactions.
The final product represents an important undertaking of the Conference and the Institute. It has proceeded, following recommendations by the Conference's Study Committee in 1981, through preparation and review by the Conference's Drafting Committee first of a proposed free-standing Uniform Personal Property Leasing Act, which was approved by the Conference, and later of Article 2A, which proceeded through the Permanent Editorial Board, the Executive Committee of the Conference, the Conference, and the Council of the Institute and the Annual Meeting of the members of the Institute. Carrying the text through these several stages has required coordination of somewhat different procedures, and continued patience and mutual forbearance. At the same time, the text has been subjected to analysis and criticism from many points of view and thereby steadily improved.
The resulting product borrows from both Articles 2 and 9. These existing Articles of the Uniform Commercial Code have certain imperfections revealed by the long experience since their adoption. Article 2A cannot overcome those imperfections but seeks to minimize their significance as applied to leases. More fundamentally, there is important conceptual dissonance between Article 2 and Article 9. The formulation of Article 2A takes Articles 2 and 9 as they are for the time being and hence has required careful adjustment to this dissonance.
The drafting task has been complicated both as a matter of substance and as a matter of process. The Reporter, Ronald DeKoven, has been a master of substance and a steady and receptive principal in the process. We join with the Conference and the Institute in expressing our admiration and appreciation for his contribution to this important field of law.
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Kansas Adopts Revisions to Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code," Professor William H. Lawrence, 61 J.K.B.A. No. 5, 21 (1992).
"Deviations from the Statutory Analogues: The New U.C.C. Article 2a," William H. Lawrence and John H. Minan, 40 K.L.R. 531 (1992).
Part 1.—GENERAL PROVISIONS
84-2a-101 Short title.Part 2.—FORMATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF LEASE CONTRACT
84-2a-201 Statute of frauds.Part 3.—EFFECT OF LEASE CONTRACT
84-2a-301 Enforceability of lease contract.Part 4.—PERFORMANCE OF LEASE CONTRACT: REPUDIATED, SUBSTITUTED AND EXCUSED
84-2a-401 Insecurity: adequate assurance of performance.Part 5.—DEFAULT
A.—IN GENERAL
84-2a-501 Default; procedure.B.—DEFAULT BY LESSOR
84-2a-508 Lessee's remedies.B.—DEFAULT BY LESSOR
84-2a-514 Waiver of lessee's obligations.C.—DEFAULT BY LESSEE
84-2a-523 Lessor's remedies.Revised Article 3 (with miscellaneous and conforming amendments to Articles 1 and 4) is a companion undertaking to Article 4A on funds transfers. Both efforts were undertaken for the purpose of accommodating modern technologies and practices in payment systems and with respect to negotiable instruments. Both efforts were drafted by the same committee over essentially the same period of time. The work on Article 4A was accorded priority and completed in 1989, and revised Article 3 was completed in 1990.
Revised Article 3 may, not inappropriately, be regarded as the latest effort in the progressive codification of the common law of negotiable instruments that began with the English Bills of Exchange Act enacted by Parliament in 1882. The Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law was promulgated by the Conference in 1896, and it in turn was reorganized and modernized by original Article 3-Commercial Paper as part of the Uniform Commercial Code jointly promulgated in 1952 by the Conference and the American Law Institute. Revised Article 3 in 1990 modernizes, reorganizes and clarifies the law.
Purpose of Drafting Effort
The original Articles 3 and 4 and their predecessors were based upon a paper payment system. Literally, there has been an explosion in the volume of paper to process since Articles 3 and 4 were first promulgated. In the early '50s, around 7 billion checks were processed annually. Correctly anticipating an increase in check volume as the result of a retail approach taken by bankers at that time, the American Bankers Association in 1954 placed a team on a research and development project to identify the most efficient method of processing checks mechanically. The eminently successful MICR line technology was the result. Upon its implementation, checks were processed at high rates of speed. In major part as a result of this technology, a seven-fold explosion in check volume has occurred between the '50s and 1988. In 1988, the Federal Reserve estimated check volume at 48 billion written annually. In 1987, Congress enacted the Expedited Funds Availability Act, and the Federal Reserve Board implemented it in 1988 with Regulation CC. Regulation CC covers many aspects of the forward check collection process and all aspects of the return process.
Present Articles 3 and 4, written for a paper-based system, do not adequately address the issues of responsibility and liability as they relate to modern technologies now employed and the procedures required by the current volume of checks and by the "Expedited Funds Availability Act" and Regulation CC. While agreements among parties to particular transactions have provided some relief, such stop-gap measures are no longer adequate.
In addition, practices have developed which are not easily accommodated within existing Article 3. For example, variable rate notes were unknown when Article 3 first was promulgated; they are common today. Questions about the "cash equivalency" of cashier's checks and money orders have arisen as banks have sought to raise defenses to the payment of these instruments.
The revision of Article 3 and Article 4 to update, improve and maintain the viability of it is necessary to accommodate these changing practices and modern technologies, the needs of a rapidly expanding national and international economy, the requirement for more rapid funds availability, and the need for more clarity and certainty. Absent such an update, further Federal preemption of state law may likely occur.
Uniformity is EssentialTraditionally, the legal structures for payments have been regulated by state law through the Uniform Commercial Code. In recent years, however, the Federal government has established regulations for credit and debit cards, and for the availability of funds in a way that regulates much of the check collection process.
With respect to wholesale funds transfers, on an average day two trillion dollars is transferred. Article 4A of the UCC promulgated in 1989 provides the governing comprehensive rules. In 1990, 12 states enacted Article 4A including California, New York and Illinois. In 1991, Article 4A has been introduced in the legislatures of most of the other states, and it is anticipated that most, if not all, will enact Article 4A uniformly. Within a short time, perhaps by 1992, the law of wholesale funds transfers should be uniform throughout the 50 states.
The law for payments through checks and which governs other negotiable instruments similarly should be uniform and up-to-date, either through state enactments or Federal preemption. Otherwise, checks as a viable payment system in international and national transactions will be severely hampered and the utility of other negotiable instruments impaired.
Process of Achieving UniformityThe essence of uniform law revision is to obtain a sufficient consensus and balance among the interests of the various participants so that universal and uniform adoption by the legislatures of all 50 states may be achieved. As is the practice of the Conference, announcement of the drafting undertaking for Articles 3, 4 and 4A was widely circulated in 1985. Anyone who so requested, received notice of all meetings and was invited to attend. Upon request, names were put on a mailing list to receive copies of drafts as they progressed. In addition, the American Bar Association Ad Hoc Committee on Payments Systems closely followed the work of the Conference and widely circulated the drafts.
The Drafting Committee had 3 or 4 meetings each year and, by August 1990, had held 20 meetings. The drafting meetings began on Friday morning and ended on Sunday at noon. All the meetings were well attended, and the average attendance was 50 or more. The discussion of the drafts was open for comment by all those who attended. In addition, the reporters received a substantial amount of comment and suggestions by written and other communications between meetings of the drafting committee. The work product was read line for line at the annual meetings of the Conference three different years. In addition, the American Law Institute circulated the drafts two or three times to its entire membership. The ALI consultative group also held a meeting to comment and make suggestions on the draft. In addition, progress reports were published annually in The Business Lawyer from 1985 through 1990.
Balance AchievedThe consensus reflected in Revised Article 3 and in the conforming amendments to Articles 1 and 4 is supported by the participants from the banking community, the users, and the Federal regulators because it reflects a balance that each interest can reasonably embrace. Some of the benefits of the Revision include:
A. Benefits in the Public InterestCertainty—Revised Articles 3 and 4 remove numerous uncertainties that exist in the current provisions and thus reduce risk to the payment system and allow appropriate planning by its users and operators.
Speed and Reliability—The Revision removes impediments to the use of automation, and better conforms to Regulation CC to expedite the availability of funds to customers and to reduce risks to banks.
Lower Costs—The Revision by providing for modern technologies, lowers costs to banks and thus to their customers.
Reduced Litigation—By clarification of troublesome issues, and by the provisions of Sections 3-404 through 3-406 which reform rules for allocation of loss from forgeries and alterations, the Revision should significantly reduce litigation.
B. Benefits to Users"Good Faith"—The definition of good faith under Sections 3-103(a)(4) and 4-104(c) is expanded to include observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing. This objective standard for good faith applies to the performance of all duties and obligations established under Articles 3 and 4.
Fiduciary Provisions—Section 3-307 protects drawers and persons owed a fiduciary responsibility by imposing stricter standards for obtaining holder in due course rights by a person dealing with the defaulting agent or fiduciary. It also spells out the circumstances under which a person receiving funds has notice of a breach of fiduciary duty, and resulting liability.
Accord and Satisfaction—Under Section 3-311 payees can avoid the unintentional accord and satisfaction by returning the funds or by giving a notice that requires checks to be sent to a particular office where such proposals can be handled. On the other hand, the drawer of a full settlement check is protected from the instrument being indorsed with protest and thus losing the money and being liable on the balance of the claim.
Cashier's Checks—Section 3-411 and related provisions considerably improve the acceptability of bank obligations like cashier's checks as cash equivalents by providing disincentives to wrongful dishonor, such as the possible recovery of consequential damages.
Indorser Liability—Section 3-415 gives more time to hold a check before the user loses indorser liability.
Reporting Forgeries—Section 4-406 increases the outside time a customer has to report forged checks or alterations to thirty days. It also requires a bank truncating checks to retain the item or the capacity to furnish legible copies for seven years.
Individual Agent and Corporate Liability—Section 3-402, as to corporate instruments signed by agents without adequate indication and representation, (except as against a holder in due course), allows a representative to show the parties did not intend individual liability. It affords full protection to the agent that signs a corporate check, even though the check does not show representative status. Also, Section 3-403(b) makes it clear that a signature of an organization is considered unauthorized if more than one signature is required and it is missing.
Direct Suits—Section 3-420 allows a person whose indorsement is forged to sue the depositary bank directly, rather than each drawee of the checks involved.
C. Benefits to the Banking CommunityCertainty—Section 3-104 and related provisions clarify what types of contracts are within Article 3 and how they are to be treated, thus promoting certainty of legal rules and reducing litigation costs and risks. Checks that may omit "words of negotiability" are included as fully negotiable; confusion over travelers checks is eliminated; variable rate instruments are included; and there is clarification of the impact of the FTC "Holder" Rule, clarification of the ability of parties to an instrument that is not included in Article 3 to contract for the application of its rules to their contract; and clarification of ordinary money orders as checks rather than bank obligations.
"Ordinary Care"—In Sections 3-103(a)(7) and 4-104(c), ordinary care is defined, making clear that financial institutions taking checks for processing or for payment by automated means need not manually handle each instrument if that is consistent with the institution's procedures and the procedures used do not vary unreasonably from the general usage of banks. This clarification is designed to accommodate and facilitate efficiency, thus lowering costs and lowering expedited funds availability risks. The definition of ordinary care relates to those specific instances in the Code where the standard of ordinary care is set forth.
Statute of Limitations—Sections 3-118 and 4-111 include statutory periods of limitations which will make the law uniform rather than leaving the topic to widely varying state laws.
Employee Fraud—Section 3-405 expands a per se negligence rule to the case of an indorsement forged by an employee whose duties involve handling checks. It also covers that of a faithless employee who supplies a name and then forges the indorsement, but does not require a precise match between the name of the payee and the indorsement.
Bank Definition—The definition of bank is expanded for the purposes of Articles 3 and 4 to clearly include savings and loans and credit unions so that their checks are directly governed by the Code. Section 4-104 clarifies that checks drawn on credit lines are subject to the rules for checks drawn on deposit accounts.
Truncation—Section 4-110 authorizes electronic presentment of items and related provisions remove impediments to truncation. Truncation will reduce risks from mandated funds availability and improve the check collection process. Section 4-406 allows an institution the benefit of its provisions even though it does not return the checks due to truncation. If both the customer and the institution fail to use ordinary care, a comparative negligence standard is used rather than placing the full loss on the institution.
Table of Disposition of Sections in Former Article 3-------
The reference to a section in Revised Article 3 is to the section that refers to the issue addressed by the section in Former Article 3. If there is no comparable section in Revised Article 3 to a section in Former Article 3, that fact is indicated by the word "Omitted."
| Former Article 3 Section | Revised Article 3 or 4 Section |
|---|---|
| 3-101 | 3-101 |
| 3-102(1)(a) | 3-105(a) |
| 3-102(1)(b) | 3-103(a)(6) |
| 3-102(1)(c) | 3-103(a)(9) |
| 3-102(1)(d) | Omitted. See Comment 2 to 3-414. |
| 3-102(1)(e) | 3-104(b) |
| 3-102(2) | 3-103(b) |
| 3-102(3) | 3-103(c) |
| 3-102(4) | 3-103(d) |
| 3-103(1) | 3-102(a) |
| 3-103(2) | 3-102(b) |
| 3-104(1) | 3-104(a) |
| 3-104(2)(a) | 3-104(e) |
| 3-104(2)(b) | 3-104(f) |
| 3-104(2)(c) | 3-104(j) |
| 3-104(2)(d) | 3-104(e) |
| 3-104(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-105(1)(a) | 3-106(a) |
| 3-105(1)(b) | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-106. |
| 3-105(1)(c) | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-106. |
| 3-105(1)(d) | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-106. |
| 3-105(1)(e) | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-106. |
| 3-105(1)(f) | 3-106(b)(ii) |
| 3-105(1)(g) | 3-106(b)(ii) |
| 3-105(1)(h) | 3-106(b)(ii) |
| 3-105(2)(a) | 3-106(a)(ii) |
| 3-105(2)(b) | 3-106(b)(ii) |
| 3-106(1) | 3-104(a) |
| 3-106(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-107(1) | Omitted. See Comment to 3-107. |
| 3-107(2) | 3-107 |
| 3-108 | 3-108(a) |
| 3-109(1) | 3-108(b) |
| 3-109(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(1) | 3-109(b) |
| 3-110(1)(a) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(1)(b) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(1)(c) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(1)(d) | 3-110(d) |
| 3-110(1)(e) | 3-110(c)(2)(i) |
| 3-110(1)(f) | 3-110(c)(2)(iv) |
| 3-110(1)(g) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-110(3) | 3-109(b) |
| 3-111(a) | 3-109(a)(1) |
| 3-111(b) | 3-109(a)(1) |
| 3-111(c) | 3-109(a)(3) and 3-205(b) |
| 3-112(1)(a) | Omitted. |
| 3-112(1)(b) | 3-104(a)(3)(i) |
| 3-112(1)(c) | 3-104(a)(3)(i) |
| 3-112(1)(d) | 3-104(a)(3)(ii) |
| 3-112(1)(e) | 3-104(a)(3)(iii) |
| 3-112(1)(f) | 3-311 |
| 3-112(1)(g) | Omitted. |
| 3-112(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-113 | Omitted. |
| 3-114(1) | Omitted. See Comment to 3-113. |
| 3-114(2) | 3-113(a) |
| 3-114(3) | Omitted. See Comment to 3-113. |
| 3-115 | 3-115 |
| 3-116(a) | 3-110(d) |
| 3-116(b) | 3-110(d) |
| 3-117(a) | 3-110(c)(2)(ii) |
| 3-117(b) | 3-110(c)(2)(i) |
| 3-117(c) | Omitted. |
| 3-118(a) | 3-104(e) and 3-103(a)(6) |
| 3-118(b) | 3-114 |
| 3-118(c) | 3-114 |
| 3-118(d) | 3-112 |
| 3-118(e) | 3-116(a) |
| 3-118(f) | Omitted. |
| 3-119 | 3-117 and 3-106(a) and (b) |
| 3-120 | 4-106(a) |
| 3-121 | 4-106(b) |
| 3-122 | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-118. |
| 3-201(1) | 3-203(b) |
| 3-201(2) | 3-204(c) |
| 3-201(3) | 3-203(c) |
| 3-202(1) | 3-201(a) |
| 3-202(2) | 3-204(a) |
| 3-202(3) | 3-203(d) |
| 3-202(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-203 | 3-204(d) |
| 3-204(1) | 3-205(a) |
| 3-204(2) | 3-205(b) |
| 3-204(3) | 3-205(c) |
| 3-205 | Omitted. |
| 3-206(1) | 3-206(a) |
| 3-206(2) | 3-206(c)(4) and (d) |
| 3-206(3) | 3-206(b), (c), and (e) |
| 3-206(4) | 3-206(d) and (e) |
| 3-207(1)(a) | 3-202(a)(i) |
| 3-207(1)(b) | 3-202(a)(ii) |
| 3-207(1)(c) | 3-202(a)(iii) |
| 3-207(1)(d) | 3-202(a)(iii) |
| 3-207(2) | 3-202(b) |
| 3-208 | 3-207 |
| 3-301 | Omitted. See Comment to 3-301. |
| 3-302(1) | 3-302(a) |
| 3-302(2) | Omitted. See Comment 4 to 3-302. |
| 3-302(3)(a) | 3-302(c)(i) |
| 3-302(3)(b) | 3-302(c)(iii) |
| 3-302(3)(c) | 3-302(c)(ii) |
| 3-302(4) | 3-302(e) |
| 3-303(a) | 3-303(a)(1) and (2) |
| 3-303(b) | 3-303(a)(3) |
| 3-303(c) | 3-303(a)(4) and (5) |
| 3-304(1)(a) | 3-302(a)(1) |
| 3-304(1)(b) | Omitted. |
| 3-304(2) | 3-307(b) |
| 3-304(3)(a) | 3-302(a)(2)(iii); 3-304(b)(1) |
| 3-304(3)(b) | 3-304(b)(3) |
| 3-304(3)(c) | 3-304(a)(1), (2) and (3) |
| 3-304(4)(a) | Omitted. |
| 3-304(4)(b) | Omitted. |
| 3-304(4)(c) | Omitted. |
| 3-304(4)(d) | Omitted. |
| 3-304(4)(e) | 3-307 |
| 3-304(4)(f) | 3-304(c) |
| 3-304(5) | 3-302(b) |
| 3-304(6) | Omitted. |
| 3-305(1) | 3-306 |
| 3-305(2)(a) | 3-305(a)(1)(i) |
| 3-305(2)(b) | 3-305(a)(1)(ii) |
| 3-305(2)(c) | 3-305(a)(1)(iii) |
| 3-305(2)(d) | 3-305(a)(1)(iv) |
| 3-305(2)(e) | 3-601(b) |
| 3-306(a) | 3-306 |
| 3-306(b) | 3-305(a)(2) |
| 3-306(c) | 3-305(a)(2); 3-303(b); 3-105(b) |
| 3-306(d) | 3-305(c) |
| 3-307(1)(a) | 3-308(a) |
| 3-307(1)(b) | 3-308(a) |
| 3-307(2) | 3-308(b) |
| 3-307(3) | 3-308(b) |
| 3-401(1) | 3-401(a) |
| 3-401(2) | 3-401(b) |
| 3-402 | 3-204(a) |
| 3-403(1) | 3-402(a) |
| 3-403(2)(a) | 3-402(b)(2) |
| 3-403(2)(b) | 3-402(b)(2) |
| 3-403(3) | 3-402(b)(1) |
| 3-404(1) | 3-403(a) |
| 3-404(2) | 3-403(a) |
| 3-405(1)(a) | 3-404(a) |
| 3-405(1)(b) | 3-404(b)(i) |
| 3-405(1)(c) | 3-405 |
| 3-405(2) | 3-403(c) |
| 3-406 | 3-406 |
| 3-407(1)(a) | 3-407(a)(i) |
| 3-407(1)(b) | 3-407(a)(ii) |
| 3-407(1)(c) | 3-407(a)(i) |
| 3-407(2)(a) | 3-407(b) |
| 3-407(2)(b) | 3-407(b) |
| 3-407(3) | 3-407(c) |
| 3-408 | 3-303(b) |
| 3-409(1) | 3-408 |
| 3-409(2) | Omitted. See Comment 1 to 3-408. |
| 3-410(1) | 3-409(a) |
| 3-410(2) | 3-409(b) |
| 3-410(3) | 3-409(c) |
| 3-411(1) | 3-409(d); 3-414(c); 3-415(d) |
| 3-411(2) | 3-409(d) |
| 3-411(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-412(1) | 3-410(a) |
| 3-412(2) | 3-410(b) |
| 3-412(3) | 3-410(c) |
| 3-413(1) | 3-412; 3-413(a) |
| 3-413(2) | 3-414(b) and (e) |
| 3-413(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-414(1) | 3-415(a) and (b) |
| 3-414(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-415(1) | 3-419(a) |
| 3-415(2) | 3-419(b) |
| 3-415(3) | Omitted. See 3-605(h) |
| 3-415(4) | 3-419(c) |
| 3-415(5) | 3-419(e) |
| 3-416(1) | Omitted. |
| 3-416(2) | 3-419(d) |
| 3-416(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-416(4) | 3-419(c) |
| 3-416(5) | Omitted. |
| 3-416(6) | Omitted. |
| 3-417(1) | 3-417 |
| 3-417(2) | 3-416 |
| 3-417(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-417(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-418 | 3-418 |
| 3-419(1) | 3-420(a) |
| 3-419(2) | 3-420(b) |
| 3-419(3) | 3-420(c) |
| 3-419(4) | 3-206(c)(4) and (d) |
| 3-501(1)(a) | 3-414(b); 3-502(b)(3) and (4) |
| 3-501(1)(b) | 3-415(a); 3-502(a)(1) and (2); 3-502(b), (c), (d) and (e) |
| 3-501(1)(c) | 3-414(f); 3-415(e) |
| 3-501(2)(a) | 3-503(a) |
| 3-501(2)(b) | Omitted. See Comment 2 to 3-414. |
| 3-501(3) | Omitted. See Comment to 3-505. |
| 3-501(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-502(1)(a) | 3-415(e) |
| 3-502(1)(b) | 3-414(f) |
| 3-502(2) | Omitted. See Comment to 3-505. |
| 3-503 | Omitted. See Comment to 3-502. |
| 3-504(1) | 3-501(a) |
| 3-504(2)(a) | 3-501(b)(1) |
| 3-504(2)(b) | 3-501(b)(1) |
| 3-504(2)(c) | 3-501(b)(1); 3-111 |
| 3-504(3)(a) | 3-501(b)(1) |
| 3-504(3)(b) | Omitted. |
| 3-504(4) | 3-501(b)(1) |
| 3-504(5) | Omitted. |
| 3-505(1)(a) | 3-501(b)(2)(i) |
| 3-505(1)(b) | 3-501(b)(2)(ii) |
| 3-505(1)(c) | Omitted. |
| 3-505(1)(d) | 3-501(b)(2)(iii) |
| 3-505(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-506(1) | Omitted. |
| 3-506(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-507(1) | 3-502 |
| 3-507(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-507(3) | 3-501(b)(3)(i) |
| 3-507(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-508(1) | 3-503(b) |
| 3-508(2) | 3-503(c) |
| 3-508(3) | 3-503(b) |
| 3-508(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-508(5) | Omitted. |
| 3-508(6) | Omitted. |
| 3-508(7) | Omitted. |
| 3-508(8) | 3-503(b) |
| 3-509(1) | 3-505(b) |
| 3-509(2) | 3-505(b) |
| 3-509(3) | 3-505(b) |
| 3-509(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-509(5) | Omitted. |
| 3-510(a) | 3-505(a)(1) |
| 3-510(b) | 3-505(a)(2) |
| 3-510(c) | 3-505(a)(3) |
| 3-511(1) | Omitted. |
| 3-511(2)(a) | 3-504(a)(iv) |
| 3-511(2)(b) | 3-504(a)(ii), (iv), and (v); 3-504(b) |
| 3-511(2)(c) | 3-504(a)(i) |
| 3-511(3)(a) | 3-504(a)(ii) |
| 3-511(3)(b) | 3-504(a)(ii) |
| 3-511(4) | 3-502(f) |
| 3-511(5) | Omitted. |
| 3-511(6) | Omitted. |
| 3-601(1) | 3-601(a) |
| 3-601(2) | 3-601(a) |
| 3-601(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-602 | 3-601(b) |
| 3-603(1) | 3-602(a) and (b) |
| 3-603(1)(a) | 3-602(b)(2) |
| 3-603(1)(b) | Omitted. See 3-206(c)(3). |
| 3-603(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-604(1) | 3-603(c) |
| 3-604(2) | 3-603(b) |
| 3-604(3) | 3-603(c) |
| 3-605(1)(a) | 3-604(a)(i) |
| 3-605(1)(b) | 3-604(a)(ii) |
| 3-605(2) | 3-604(b) |
| 3-606(1)(a) | 3-605(b) and (c) |
| 3-606(1)(b) | 3-605(e) |
| 3-606(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-701(1) | Omitted. |
| 3-701(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-701(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-801(1) | Omitted. |
| 3-801(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-801(3) | Omitted. |
| 3-801(4) | Omitted. |
| 3-802(1)(a) | 3-310(a) and (c) |
| 3-802(1)(b) | 3-310(b) and (c) |
| 3-802(2) | Omitted. |
| 3-803 | 3-119 |
| 3-804 | 3-309 |
| 3-805 | Omitted. See Comment 2 to 3-104. |
Kansas Comment 1996
Throughout these provisions, Kansas has chosen to spell indorser with an "e," rather than the "i" used in the Official Text and the former K.S.A.'s. This minor variation from the Official Text has not been individually noted.
Revisor's Note:This article was previously entitled "Commercial Paper." In the 1991 session of the Legislature the title was changed and all sections of the article in effect at such time were repealed and the numbers reassigned to the new sections of the revised article. For text and materials relating to the prior law, see the appropriate section in Volume 7 of the K.S.A., Copyright, 1983, and the 1990 Supplement to such volume.
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Kansas Adopts Revisions to Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code," Professor William H. Lawrence, 61 J.K.B.A. No. 5, 21 (1992).
"The Kansas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act," Leon B. Graves, 68 J.K.B.A. No. 6, 34 (1999).
Part 1.—GENERAL PROVISIONS AND DEFINITIONS
84-3-101 Short Title.Part 2.—NEGOTIATION, TRANSFER AND ENDORSEMENT
84-3-201 Negotiation.Part 3.—ENFORCEMENT OF INSTRUMENTS
84-3-301 Person entitled to enforce instrument.Part 4.—LIABILITY OF PARTIES
84-3-401 Signature.Part 5.—DISHONOR
84-3-501 Presentment.Part 6.—DISCHARGE AND PAYMENT
84-3-601 Discharge and effect of discharge.Part 7.—ADVICE OF INTERNATIONAL SIGHT DRAFT
84-3-700 Revisor's NotePart 8.—MISCELLANEOUS
84-3-800 Revisor's NoteIn the 1991 session of the legislature the sections in this article were amended and the text of many sections transferred and new subject matter substituted. For the text and materials relating to the prior law, see the appropriate section in Volume 7 of the K.S.A., copyright 1983, and the 1990 supplement to such volume.
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Kansas Adopts Revisions to Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code," Professor William H. Lawrence, 61 J.K.B.A. No. 5, 21 (1992).
"Changes in Check Collection and Access to Funds; Regulation CC and Revised UCC Article 4," William H. Lawrence, 61 J.K.B.A. No. 6, 26 (1992).
Part 1.—GENERAL PROVISIONS AND DEFINITIONS
84-4-101 Short title.Part 2.—COLLECTION OF ITEMS: DEPOSITORY AND COLLECTING BANKS
84-4-201 Status of collecting bank as agent and provisional status of credits; applicability of article; item endorsed "pay any bank".Part 3.—COLLECTION OF ITEMS: PAYOR BANKS
84-4-301 Deferred posting; recovery of payment by return of items; time of dishonor; return of items by payor bank.Part 4.—RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAYOR BANK AND ITS CUSTOMER
84-4-401 When bank may charge customer's account.Part 5.—COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTARY DRAFTS
84-4-501 Handling of documentary drafts; duty to send for presentment and to notify customer of dishonor.OFFICIAL UCC PREFATORY NOTE
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State laws and The American Law Institute have approved a new Article 4A to the Uniform Commercial Code. Comments that follow each of the sections of the statute are intended as official comments. They explain in detail the purpose and meaning of the various sections and the policy considerations on which they are based.
Description of transaction covered by Article 4A.
There are a number of mechanisms for making payments through the banking system. Most of these mechanisms are covered in whole or part by state or federal statutes. In terms of number of transactions, payments made by check or credit card are the most common payment methods. Payment by check is covered by Articles 3 and 4 of the UCC and some aspects of payment by credit card are covered by federal law. In recent years electronic funds transfers have been increasingly common in consumer transactions. For example, in some cases a retail customer can pay for purchases by use of an access or debit card inserted in a terminal at the retail store that allows the bank account of the customer to be instantly debited. Some aspects of these point-of-sale transactions and other consumer payments that are effected electronically are covered by a federal statute, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA). If any part of a funds transfer is covered by EFTA, the entire funds transfer is excluded from Article 4A.
Another type of payment, commonly referred to as a wholesale wire transfer, is the primary focus of Article 4A. Payments that are covered by Article 4A are overwhelmingly between business or financial institutions. The dollar volume of payments made by wire transfer far exceeds the dollar volume of payments made by other means. The volume of payments by wire transfer over the two principal wire payment systems-the Federal Reserve wire transfer network (Fedwire) and the New York Clearing House Interbank Payments Systems (CHIPS)-exceeds one trillion dollars per day. Most payments carried out by use of automated clearing houses are consumer payments covered by EFTA and therefore not covered by Article 4A. There is, however, a significant volume of nonconsumer ACH payments that closely resemble wholesale wire transfers. These payments are also covered by Article 4A.
There is some resemblance between payments made by wire transfer and payments made by other means such as paper-based checks and credit cards or electronically-based consumer payments, but there are also many differences. Article 4A excludes from its coverage these other payment mechanisms. Article 4A follows a policy of treating the transaction that it covers-a "funds transfer"-as a unique method of payment that is governed by unique principles of law that address the operational and policy issues presented by this kind of payment.
The funds transfer that is covered by Article 4A is not a complex transaction and can be illustrated by the following example which is used throughout the Prefatory Note as a basis for discussion. X, a debtor, wants to pay an obligation owed to Y. Instead of delivering to Y a negotiable instrument such as a check or some other writing such as a credit card slip that enables Y to obtain payment from a bank, X transmits an instruction to X's bank to credit a sum of money to the bank account of Y. In most cases X's bank and Y's bank are different banks. X's bank may carry out X's instruction by instructing Y's bank to credit Y's account in the amount that X requested. The instruction that X issues to its bank is a "payment order." X is the "sender" of the payment order and X's bank is the "receiving bank" with respect to X's order. Y is the "beneficiary" of X's order. When X's bank issues an instruction to Y's bank to carry out X's payment order, X's bank "executes" X's order. The instruction of X's bank to Y's bank is also a payment order. With respect to that order, X's bank is the sender, Y's bank is the receiving bank, and Y is the beneficiary. The entire series of transactions by which X pays Y is knows as the "funds transfer." With respect to the funds transfer, X is the "originator," X's bank is the "originator's bank," Y is the "beneficiary" and Y's bank is the "beneficiary's bank." In more complex transactions there are one or more additional banks known as "intermediary banks" between X's bank and Y's bank. In the funds transfer the instruction contained in the payment order of X to its bank is carried out by a series of payment orders by each bank in the transmission chain to the next bank in the chain until Y's bank receives a payment order to make the credit to Y's account. In most cases, the payment order of each bank to the next bank in the chain is transmitted electronically, and often the payment order of X to its bank is also transmitted electronically, but the means of transmission does not have any legal significance. A payment order may be transmitted by any means, and in some cases the payment order is transmitted by a slow means such as first class mail. To reflect this fact, the broader term "funds transfer" rather than the narrower term "wire transfer" is used in Article 4A to describe the overall payment transaction.
Funds transfers are divided into two categories determined by whether the instruction to pay is given by the person making payment or the person receiving payment. If the instruction is given by the person making the payment, the transfer is commonly referred to as a "credit transfer." If the instruction is given by the person receiving payment, the transfer is commonly referred to as a "debit transfer." Article 4A governs credit transfers and excludes debit transfers.
Why is Article 4A needed?There is no comprehensive body of law that defines the rights and obligations that arise from wire transfers. Some aspects of wire transfers are governed by rules of the principal transfer systems. Transfers made by Fedwire are governed by Federal Reserve Regulation J and transfers over CHIPS are governed by the CHIPS rules. Transfers made by means of automated clearing houses are governed by uniform rules adopted by various associations of banks in various parts of the nation or by Federal Reserve rules or operating circulars. But the various funds transfer system rules apply to only limited aspects of wire transfer transactions. The resolution of the many issues that are not covered by funds transfer system rules depends on contracts of the parties, to the extent that they exist, or principles of law applicable to other payment mechanisms that might be applied by analogy. The result is a great deal of uncertainty. There is no consensus about the juridical nature of a wire transfer and consequently of the rights and obligations that are created. Article 4A is intended to provide the comprehensive body of law that we do not have today.
Characteristics of a funds transfer.There are a number of characteristics of funds transfers covered by Article 4A that have influenced the drafting of the statute. The typical funds transfer involves a large amount of money. Multimillion dollar transactions are commonplace. The originator of the transfer and the beneficiary are typically sophisticated business or financial organizations. High speed is another predominant characteristic. Most funds transfers are completed on the same day, even in complex transactions in which there are several intermediary banks in the transmission chain. A funds transfer is a highly efficient substitute for payments made by the delivery of paper instruments. Another characteristic is extremely low cost. A transfer that involves many millions of dollars can be made for a price of a few dollars. Price does not normally vary very much or at all with the amount of the transfer. This system of pricing may not be feasible if the bank is exposed to very large liabilities in connection with the transaction. The pricing system assumes that the price reflects primarily the cost of the mechanical operation performed by the bank, but in fact, a bank may have more or less potential liability with respect to a funds transfer depending upon the amount of the transfer. Risk of loss to banks carrying out a funds transfer may arise from a variety of causes. In some funds transfers, there may be extensions of very large amounts of credit for short periods of time by the banks that carry out a funds transfer. If a payment order is issued to the beneficiary's bank, it is normal for the bank to release funds to the beneficiary immediately. Sometimes, payment to the beneficiary's bank by the bank that issued the order to the beneficiary's bank is delayed until the end of the day. If that payment is not received because of the insolvency of the bank that is obliged to pay, the beneficiary's bank may suffer a loss. There is also risk of loss if a bank fails to execute the payment order of a customer, or if the order is executed late. There also may be an error in the payment order issued by a bank that is executing the payment order of its customer. For example, the error might relate to the amount to be paid or to the identity of the person to be paid. Because the dollar amounts involved in funds transfers are so large, the risk of loss if something goes wrong in a transaction may also be very large. A major policy issue in the drafting of Article 4A is that of determining how risk of loss is to be allocated given the price structure in the industry.
Concept of acceptance and effect of acceptance by the beneficiary's bank.Rights and obligations under Article 4A arise as the result of "acceptance" of a payment order by the bank to which the order is addressed. Section 4A-209. The effect of acceptance varies depending upon whether the payment order is issued to the beneficiary's bank or to a bank other than the beneficiary's bank. Acceptance by the beneficiary's bank is particularly important because it defines when the beneficiary's bank becomes obligated to the beneficiary to pay the amount of the payment order. Although Article 4A follows convention in using the term "funds transfer" to identify the payment from X to Y that is described above, no money or property right of X is actually transferred to Y. X pays Y by causing Y's bank to become indebted to Y in the amount of the payment. This debt arises when Y's bank accepts the payment order that X's bank issued to Y's bank to execute X's order. If the funds transfer was carried out by use of one or more intermediary banks between X's bank and Y's bank, Y's bank becomes indebted to Y when Y's bank accepts the payment order issued to it by an intermediary bank. The funds transfer is completed when this debt is incurred. Acceptance, the event that determines when the debt of Y's bank to Y arises, occurs (i) when Y's bank pays Y or notifies Y of receipt of the payment order, or (ii) when Y's bank receives payment from the bank that issued a payment order to Y's bank.
The only obligation of the beneficiary's bank that results from acceptance of a payment order is to pay the amount of the order to the beneficiary. No obligation is owed to either the sender of the payment order accepted by the beneficiary's bank or to the originator of the funds transfer. The obligation created by acceptance by the beneficiary's bank is for the benefit of the beneficiary. The purpose of the sender's payment order is to effect payment by the originator to the beneficiary and that purpose is achieved when the beneficiary's bank accepts the payment order. Section 4A-405 states rules for determining when the obligation of the beneficiary's bank to the beneficiary has been paid.
Acceptance by a bank other than the beneficiary's bank.In the funds transfer described above, what is the obligation of X's bank when it receives X's payment order? Funds transfers by a bank on behalf of its customer are made pursuant to an agreement or arrangement that may or may not be reduced to a formal document signed by the parties. It is probably true that in most cases there is either no express agreement or the agreement addresses only some aspects of the transaction. Substantial risk is involved in funds transfers and a bank may not be willing to give this service to all customers, and may not be willing to offer it to any customer unless certain safeguards against loss such as security procedures are in effect. Funds transfers often involve the giving of credit by the receiving bank to the customer, and that also may involve an agreement. These considerations are reflected in Article 4A by the principle that, in the absence of a contrary agreement, a receiving bank does not incur liability with respect to a payment order until it accepts it. If X and X's bank in the hypothetical case had an agreement that obliged the bank to act on X's payment orders and the bank failed to comply with the agreement, the bank can be held liable for breach of the agreement. But apart from any obligation arising by agreement, the bank does not incur any liability with respect to X's payment order until the bank accepts the order. X's payment order is treated by Article 4A as a request by X to the bank to take action that will cause X's payment order to be carried out. That request can be accepted by X's bank by "executing" X's payment order. Execution occurs when X's bank sends a payment order to Y's bank intended by X's bank to carry out the payment order of X. X's bank could also execute X's payment order by issuing a payment order to an intermediary bank instructing the intermediary bank to instruct Y's bank to make the credit to Y's account. In that case execution and acceptance of X's order occur when the payment order of X's bank is sent to the intermediary bank. When X's bank executes X's payment order the bank is entitled to receive payment from X and may debit an authorized account of X. If X's bank does not execute X's order and the amount of the order is covered by a withdrawable credit balance in X's authorized account, the bank must pay X interest on the money represented by X's order unless X is given prompt notice of rejection of the order. Section 4A-210(b).
Bank error in funds transfers.If a bank, other than the beneficiary's bank, accepts a payment order, the obligations and liabilities are owed to the originator of the funds transfer. Assume in the example stated above, that X's bank executes X's payment order by issuing a payment order to an intermediary bank that executes the order of X's bank by issuing a payment order to Y's bank. The obligations of X's bank with respect to execution are owed to X. The obligations of the intermediary bank with respect to execution are also owed to X. Section 4A-302 states standards with respect to the time and manner of execution of payment orders. Section 4A-305 states the measure of damages for improper execution. It also states that a receiving bank is liable for damages if it fails to execute a payment order that it was obliged by express agreement to execute. In each case consequential damages are not recoverable unless an express agreement of the receiving bank provides for them. The policy basis for this limitation is discussed in Comment 2 to Section 4A-305.
Error in the consummation of a funds transfer is not uncommon. There may be a discrepancy in the amount that the originator orders to be paid to the beneficiary and the amount that the beneficiary's bank is ordered to pay. For example, if the originator's payment order instructs payment of $100,000 and the payment order of the originator's bank instructs payment of $1,000,000, the originator's bank is entitled to receive only $100,000 from the originator and has the burden of recovering the additional $900,000 paid to the beneficiary by mistake. In some cases the originator's bank or an intermediary bank instructs payment to a beneficiary other than the beneficiary stated in the originator's payment order. If the wrong beneficiary is paid the bank that issued the erroneous payment order is not entitled to receive payment of the payment order that it executed and has the burden of recovering the mistaken payment. The originator is not obliged to pay its payment order. Section 4A-303 and Section 4A-207 state rules for determining the rights and obligations of the various parties to the funds transfer in these cases and in other typical cases in which error is made.
Pursuant to Section 4A-402(c) the originator is excused from the obligation to pay the originator's bank if the funds transfer is not completed, i.e. payment by the originator to the beneficiary is not made. Payment by the originator to the beneficiary occurs when the beneficiary's bank accepts a payment order for the benefit of the beneficiary of the originator's payment order. Section 4A-406. If for any reason that acceptance does not occur, the originator is not required to pay the payment order that it issued or, if it already paid, is entitled to refund of the payment with interest. This "money-back guarantee" is an important protection of the originator of a funds transfer. The same rule applies to any other sender in the funds transfer. Each sender's obligation to pay is excused if the beneficiary's bank does not accept a payment order for the benefit of the beneficiary of that sender's order. There is an important exception to this rule. It is common practice for the originator of a funds transfer to designate the intermediary bank or banks through which the funds transfer is to be routed. The originator's bank is required by Section 4A-302 to follow the instruction of the originator with respect to intermediary banks. If the originator's bank sends a payment order to the intermediary bank designated in the originator's order and the intermediary bank causes the funds transfer to miscarry by failing to execute the payment order or by instructing payment to the wrong beneficiary, the originator's bank is not required to pay its payment order and if it has already paid it is entitled to recover payment from the intermediary bank. This remedy is normally adequate, but if the originator's bank already paid its order and the intermediary bank has suspended payments or is not permitted by law to refund payment, the originator's bank will suffer a loss. Since the originator required the originator's bank to use the failed intermediary bank, Section 4A-402(e) provides that in this case the originator is obliged to pay its payment order and has a claim against the intermediary bank for the amount of the order. The same principle applies to any other sender that designates a subsequent intermediary bank.
Unauthorized payment orders.An important issue addressed in Section 4A-202 and Section 4A-203 is how the risk of loss from unauthorized payment orders is to be allocated. In a large percentage of cases, the payment order of the originator of the funds transfer is transmitted electronically to the originator's bank. In these cases it may not be possible for the bank to know whether the electronic message has been authorized by its customer. To ensure that no unauthorized person is transmitting messages to the bank, the normal practice is to establish security procedures that usually involve the use of codes or identifying numbers or words. If the bank accepts a payment order that purports to be that of its customer after verifying its authenticity by complying with a security procedure agreed to by the customer and the bank, the customer is bound to pay the order even if it was not authorized. But there is an important limitation on this rule. The bank is entitled to payment in the case of an unauthorized order only if the court finds that the security procedure was a commercially reasonable method of providing security against unauthorized payment orders. The customer can also avoid liability if it can prove that the unauthorized order was not initiated by an employee or other agent of the customer having access to confidential security information or by a person who obtained that information from a source controlled by the customer. The policy issues are discussed in the comments following Section 4A-203. If the bank accepts an unauthorized payment order without verifying it in compliance with a security procedure, the loss falls on the bank.
Security procedures are also important in cases of error in the transmission of payment orders. There may be an error by the sender in the amount of the order, or a sender may transmit a payment order and then erroneously transmit a duplicate of the order. Normally, the sender is bound by the payment order even if it is issued by mistake. But in some cases an error of this kind can be detected by a security procedure. Although the receiving bank is not obliged to provide a security procedure for the detection of error, if such a procedure is agreed to by the bank Section 4A-205 provides that if the error is not detected because the receiving bank does not comply with the procedure, any resulting loss is borne by the bank failing to comply with the security procedure.
Insolvency losses.Some payment orders do not involve the granting of credit to the sender by the receiving bank. In those cases, the receiving bank accepts the sender's order at the same time the bank receives payment of the order. This is true of a transfer of funds by Fedwire or of cases in which the receiving bank can debit a funded account of the sender. But in some cases the granting of credit is the norm. This is true of a payment order over CHIPS. In a CHIPS transaction the receiving bank usually will accept the order before receiving payment from the sending bank. Payment is delayed until the end of the day when settlement is made through the Federal Reserve System. If the receiving bank is an intermediary bank, it will accept by issuing a payment order to another bank and the intermediary bank is obliged to pay that payment order. If the receiving bank is the beneficiary's bank, the bank usually will accept by releasing funds to the beneficiary before the bank has received payment. If a sending bank suspends payments before settling its liabilities at the end of the day, the financial stability of banks that are net creditors of the insolvent bank may also be put into jeopardy, because the dollar volume of funds transfers between the banks may be extremely large. With respect to two banks that are dealing with each other in a series of transactions in which each bank is sometimes a receiving bank and sometimes a sender, the risk of insolvency can be managed if amounts payable as a sender and amounts receivable as a receiving bank are roughly equal. But if these amounts are significantly out of balance, a net creditor bank may have a very significant credit risk during the day before settlement occurs. The Federal Reserve System and the banking community are greatly concerned with this risk, and various measures have been instituted to reduce this credit exposure. Article 4A also addresses this problem. A receiving bank can always avoid this risk by delaying acceptance of a payment order until after the bank as received payment. For example, if the beneficiary's bank credits the beneficiary's account it can avoid acceptance by not notifying the beneficiary of the receipt of the order or by notifying the beneficiary that the credit may not be withdrawn until the beneficiary's bank receives payment. But if the beneficiary's bank releases funds to the beneficiary before receiving settlement, the result in a funds transfer other than a transfer by means of an automated clearing house or similar provisional settlement system is that the beneficiary's bank may not recover the funds if it fails to receive settlement. This rule encourages the banking system to impose credit limitations on banks that issue payment orders. These limitations are already in effect. CHIPS has also proposed a loss-sharing plan to be adopted for implementation in the second half of 1990 under which CHIPS participants will be required to provide funds necessary to complete settlement of the obligations of one or more participants that are unable to meet settlement obligations. Under this plan, it will be a virtual certainty that there will be settlement on CHIPS in the event of failure by a single bank. Section 4A-403(b) and (c) are also addressed to reducing risks of insolvency. Under these provisions the amount owed by a failed bank with respect to payment orders it issued is the net amount owing after setting off amounts owed to the failed bank with respect to payment orders it received. This rule allows credit exposure to be managed by limitations on the net debit position of a bank.
International transfers.The major international legal document dealing with the subject of electronic funds transfers is the Model Law on International Credit Transfers adopted in 1992 by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. It covers basically the same type of transaction as does Article 4A, although it requires the funds transferred to have an international component. The Model Law and Article 4A basically live together in harmony, but to the extent there are differences they must be recognized and, to the extent possible, avoided or adjusted by agreement. See PEB Commentary No. 13, dated February 16, 1994 [Appendix V, infra].
KANSAS COMMENT, 1996Article 4a is generally identical to the 1995 Official Text. For all of the sections, Kansas has used a lower case "a" rather than a capital "A" in "84-4a." This will not be individually noted for each section.
Article 4a focuses on a specific type of funds transfer, those where the owner of the funds (usually denominated as the "sender," 84-4a-103(a)(5), or "originator," 84-4a-104(b)) is instructing a bank, the "originator's bank," 84-4a-104(d), or the "receiving bank," 84-4a-103(a)(4), to cause a bank, the "beneficiary's bank," 84-4a-103(a)(3), to pay a "beneficiary," 84-4a-103(a)(2). It excludes transactions which are governed by federal law, as noted in 84-4a-108.
Comprehensive coverage of article 4a is available in the four volume series by James J. White and Robert S. Summers, The Uniform Commercial Code, Practitioners Treatise Series, (4th ed. 1995).
Law Review and Bar Journal References:"Resolved: That the Kansas and Other State Legislatures Should Enact Article 2a of the Uniform Commercial Code," William H. Lawrence and John H. Minan, 39 K.L.R. 95 (1990).
"Expansion of the Uniform Commercial Code: Kansas Enacts Article 4a," Professor William Lawrence, 59 J.K.B.A. No. 8, 27 (1990).
"Electronic Commerce Under the U.C.C. Section 2-201 Statute of Frauds: Are Electronic Messages Enforceable?" Deborah L. Wilkerson, 41 K.L.R. 403, 420 (1992).
Part 1.—SUBJECT MATTER AND DEFINITIONS
84-4a-101 Short title.Part 2.—ISSUE AND ACCEPTANCE OF PAYMENT ORDER
84-4a-201 Security procedure.Part 3.—EXECUTION OF SENDER'S PAYMENT ORDER BY RECEIVING BANK
84-4a-301 Execution and execution date.Part 4.—PAYMENT
84-4a-401 Payment date.Part 5.—MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
84-4a-501 Variation by agreement and effect of funds-transfer system rule.OFFICIAL UCC PREFATORY NOTE
Reason for RevisionWhen the original Article 5 was drafted 40 years ago, it was written for paper transactions and before many innovations in letters of credit. Now electronic and other media are used extensively. Since the 50's, standby letters of credit have developed and now nearly $500 billion standby letters of credit are issued annually worldwide, of which $250 billion are issued in the United States. The use of deferred payment letters of credit has also greatly increased. The customs and practices for letters of credit have evolved and are reflected in the Uniform Customs and Practice (UCP), usually incorporated into letters of credit, particularly international letters of credit, which have seen four revisions since the 1950's; the current version became effective in 1994 (UCP 500). Lastly, in a number of areas, court decisions have resulted in conflicting rules.
Prior to the appointment of a drafting committee, the ABA UCC Committee appointed a Task Force composed of knowledgeable practitioners and academics. The ABA Task Force studied the case law, evolving technologies and the changes in customs and practices. The Task Force identified a large number of issues which they discussed at some length, and made recommendations for revisions to Article 5. The Task Force stated in a foreword:
"As a result of these increases and changes in usage, practice, players, and pressure, it comes as no surprise that there has been a sizable increase in litigation. Indeed, the approximately 62 cases reported in the United States in 1987 constituted double the cumulative reported cases up to 1965.
Moreover, almost forty years of hard use have revealed weaknesses, gaps and errors in the original statute which compromise its relevance. U.C.C. Article 5 was one of the few areas of the Uniform Commercial Code which did not benefit from prior codification and it should come as no surprise that it may require some revision.
Measured in terms of these areas which are vital to any system of commercial law, the current combination of statute and case law is found wanting in major respects both as to predictability and certainty. What is at issue here are not matters of sophistry but important issues of substance which have not been resolved by the current case law/code method and which admit of little likelihood of such resolution." (45 Bus. Lawyer 1521, at 1532, 1535-6)
The Drafting Committee began its deliberations with the Task Force Report in hand. The final work of the Drafting Committee varies from many of the suggestions of the Task Force.
Need for UniformityLetters of Credit are a major instrument in international trade, as well as domestic transactions. To facilitate its usefulness and competitiveness, it is essential that U.S. law be in harmony with international rules and practices, as well as flexible enough to accommodate changes in technology and practices that have, and are, evolving. Not only should the rules be consistent within the United States, but they need to be substantively and procedurally consistent with international practices.
Thus, the goals of the drafting effort were:
Conforming the Article 5 rules to current customs and practices;
accommodating new forms of Letters of Credit, changes in customs and practices, and evolving technology, particularly the use of electronic media;
maintaining Letters of Credit as an inexpensive and efficient instrument facilitating trade; and
resolving conflicts among reported decisions.
Process of Achieving UniformityThe essence of uniform law revision is to obtain a sufficient consensus and balance among the interests of the various participants so that universal and uniform enactment by the various States may be achieved.
In part this is accomplished by extensive consultation on and broad circulation of the drafts from 1990, when the project began, until approval of the final draft by the American law Institute (ALI) and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).
Hundreds of groups were invited to participate in the drafting process. Twenty Advisors were appointed, representing a cross-section of interested parties. In addition 20 Observers regularly attended drafting meetings and over 100 were on the mailing list to receive all drafts of the revision.
The Drafting Committee meetings were open and all those who attended were afforded full opportunity to express their views and participate in the dialogue. The Advisors and Observers were a balanced group with ten representatives of users (Beneficiaries and Applicants); five representatives of governmental agencies; five representatives of the U.S. Council on International Banking (USCIB); seven from major banks in letter of credit transactions; eight from regional banks; and seven law professors who teach and write on Letters of Credit.
Nine Drafting Committee meetings were held that began Friday morning and ended Sunday noon. In addition, the draft was twice debated in full by NCCUSL, once by the ALI Council, once considered by the ALI Consultative Group and once by an ad hoc Committee of the Council; and reviewed and discussed by the ABA Subcommittee on Letters of Credit semi-annually and by several state and city bar association committees.
The drafts were regularly reviewed and discussed in The Business Lawyer, Letter of Credit Update, and in other publications.
Balance of BenefitsUniform laws can be enacted only if there is a consensus that the benefits achieved advance the public interest in a manner that can be embraced by all users of the law. It appears that as drafted, Revised Article 5 will enjoy substantial support by the participating interests in letter of credit transactions.
Benefits of Revised Article 5 in GeneralIndependence Principle. Revised Article 5 clearly and forcefully states the independence of the letter of credit obligations from the underlying transactions that was unexpressed in, but was a fundamental predicate for, the original Article 5 (Sections 5-103(d) and 5-108(f)). Certainty of payment, independent of other claims, setoffs or other causes of action, is a core element of the commercial utility of letters of credit.
Clarifications. The revision authorizes the use of electronic technology (Sections 5-102(a)(14) and 5-104); expressly permits deferred payment letters of credit (Section 5-102(a)(8)) and two party letters of credit (Section 5-102(a)(10)); provides rules for unstated expiry dates (Section 5-106(c)), perpetual letters of credit (Section 5-106(d)), and non-documentary conditions (Section 5-108(g)); clarifies and establishes rules for successors by operation of law (Sections 5-102(a)(15) and 5-113); conforms to existing practice for assignment of proceeds (Section 5-114); and clarifies the rules where decisions have been in conflict (Section 5-106, Comment 1; Section 5-108, Comments 1, 3, 4, 7, and 9; Section 5-109, Comments 1 and 3; Section 5-113, Comment 1; and Section 5-117, Comment 1).
Harmonizes with International PracticeThe UCP is used in most international letters of credit and in many domestic letters of credit. These international practices are well known and employed by the major issuers and users of letters of credit. Revisions have been made to Article 5 to coordinate the Article 5 rules with current international practice (e.g., deferred payment obligations, reasonable time to examine documents, preclusion, non-documentary conditions, return of documents, and irrevocable unless stated to be revocable).
Benefits of Revised Article 5 to IssuersConsequential Damages. Section 5-111 precludes consequential and punitive damages. It, however, provides strong incentives for Issuers to honor, including provisions for attorneys fees and expenses of litigation, interest, and specific performance. If consequential and punitive damages were allowed, the cost of letters of credit could rise substantially.
Statute of Limitation. Section 5-115 establishes a one year statute of limitation from the expiration date or from accrual of the cause of action, whichever occurs later. Because it is usually obvious to all when there has been a breach, a short limitation period is fair to potential plaintiffs.
Choice of Law. Section 5-116 permits the issuer (or nominated party or adviser) to choose the law of the jurisdiction that will govern even if that law bears no relation to the transaction. Absent agreement, Section 5-116 states choice of law rules.
Assignment of Proceeds. Section 5-114 conforms more fully to existing practice and provides an orderly procedure for recording and accommodating assignments by consent of the issuer (or nominated party).
Subrogation. Section 5-117 clarifies the subrogation rights of an Issuer who has honored a letter of credit. These rights of subrogation also extend to an applicant who reimburses and a nominated party who pays or gives value.
Recognition of UCP. Section 5-116(c) expressly recognizes that if the UCP is incorporated by reference into the letter of credit, the agreement varies the provisions of Article 5 with which it may conflict except for the non-variable provisions of Article 5.
Benefits of Revised Article 5 to ApplicantsWarranties. Section 5-110 specifies the warranties made by a beneficiary. It gives the applicant on a letter of credit which has been honored a direct cause of action if a drawing is fraudulent or forged or if a drawing violates any agreement augmented by a letter of credit.
Strict Compliance. Absent agreement to the contrary, the issuer must dishonor a presentation that does not strictly comply under standard practice with the terms and conditions of the letter of credit (Section 5-108).
Subrogation. New Section 5-117 clarifies the parties' rights of subrogation if the letter of credit is honored.
Limitations on General Disclaimers and Waivers. Section 5-103(c) limits the effect of general disclaimers and waivers in a letter of credit, or reimbursement or other agreement.
Benefits of Revised Article 5 to BeneficiariesIrrevocable. A letter of credit is irrevocable unless the letter of credit expressly provides it is revocable (Section 5-106(a)).
Preclusion. Section 5-108(c) now provides that the Issuer is precluded from asserting any discrepancy not stated in its notice timely given, except for fraud, forgery or expiration.
Timely Examination. Section 5-108(b) requires examination and notice of any discrepancies within a reasonable time not to exceed the 7th business day after presentation of the documents.
Transfers by Operation of Law. New Section 5-113 allows a successor to a beneficiary by operation of law to make presentation and receive payment or acceptance.
Damages. The damages provided are expanded and clarified. They include attorneys fees and expenses of litigation and payment of the full amount of the wrongfully dishonored or repudiated demand, with interest, without an obligation of the beneficiary to mitigate damages (Section 5-111).
Revisions for Article 9 and Transition ProvisionsThe draft includes suggested revisions to conform Article 9 to the Article 5 changes. Article 9 itself is under revision and the interface with Revised Article 5 will be more fully examined by the Article 9 drafting committee, as well, in light of changes to Article 9. The Article 9 revisions will probably not be completed until 1998-9. Revised Article 8 (1994) also makes changes to Article 9 so care should be taken to coordinate the changes of both Revised Articles 5 and 8 within each State.
The draft also includes transition provisions and some cross reference changes in other Articles of the UCC.
Lastly, there follows a table showing the changes from the original Article 5 made by the revisions to Article 5.
Table of Disposition of Sections in Former Article 5The reference to a section in revised Article 5 is to the section that refers to the issue addressed by the section in former Article 5. If there is no comparable section in Revised Article 5 to a section in former Article 5, that fact is indicated by the word "Omitted" and a reason is stated.
| Former Article 5 Section | Revised Article 5 Section |
|---|---|
| 5-101 | 5-101 |
| 5-102(1) | 5-103(a) |
| 5-102(2) | Omitted (inherent in 5-103(a) and definitions) |
| 5-103(3) | (first sentence omitted) 5-103(b) |
| 5-103(1)(a) | 5-102(a)(10); 5-106(a); 5-102(a)(8) |
| 5-103(1)(b) | 5-102(a)(6)("Document"), and 5-102(a)(14)("Record"); Documentary draft or demand not used |
| 5-103(1)(c) | 5-102(a)(9) |
| 5-103(1)(d) | 5-102(a)(3) |
| 5-103(1)(e) | 5-102(a)(1) |
| 5-103(1)(f) | 5-102(a)(4) |
| 5-103(1)(g) | ("Applicant" rather than "Customer") 5-102(a)(2) |
| 5-103(2) | Omitted as not applicable |
| 5-103(3) | 5-102(b) |
| 5-103(4) | 5-102(c) |
| 5-104 | 5-104 and 5-102(6) and (14) |
| 5-105 | 5-105 |
| 5-106(1) | 5-106(a) |
| 5-106(2) | 5-106(b) |
| 5-106(3) | 5-106(b) |
| 5-106(4) | 5-106(b) |
| 5-107(1) | 5-107(c) |
| 5-107(2) | 5-107(a) |
| 5-107(3) | 5-107(c) |
| 5-107(4) | Omitted as inadvisable default rule |
| 5-108 | Omitted (as outdated) |
| 5-109(1) | 5-108 |
| 5-109(2) | 5-108 |
| 5-109(3) | Omitted (all issuers required to observe standard practices) |
| 5-110(1) | Omitted (covered in definitions and comments) |
| 5-110(2) | Omitted (covered in definitions and comments) |
| 5-111(1) | 5-110(a) |
| 5-111(2) | 5-110(b) |
| 5-112(1) | 5-108(b) and (c) |
| 5-112(2) | 5-108(h) |
| 5-112(3) | 5-102(a)(12) |
| 5-113 | Omitted (covered by other contract law) |
| 5-114(1) | 5-108(a) |
| 5-114(2)(a) | 5-109(a)(1) |
| 5-114(2)(b) | 5-109(a)(2) |
| 5-114(3) | 5-108(i) |
| 5-114(4), (5) | Omitted; were optional |
| 5-115(1) | 5-111 |
| 5-115(2) | 5-111 |
| 5-116(1) | 5-112 |
| 5-116(2) | 5-114 |
| 5-116(3) | 5-114 |
| 5-117 | Omitted (covered by other law) |
Table of New Provisions
(Provisions which were not included in former Article 5 and subjects not addressed in former Article 5.)
| Subject | Revised Article 5 Section |
|---|---|
| Successor to a beneficiary | 5-102(15) |
| Non-variable terms | 5-103(c) |
| Independence principle | 5-103(d) |
| Unstated expiry date | 5-106(c) |
| Perpetual letter of credit | 5-106(d) |
| Preclusion of unstated deficiencies | 5-108(c) |
| Standard practice | 5-108(e) |
| Independence of obligation | 5-108(f) |
| Non-documentary conditions | 5-108(g) |
| Standards for issuing injunction | 5-109(b) |
| Transfer by operation of law | 5-113 |
| Statute of Limitation | 5-115 |
| Choice of law | 5-116 |
| Subrogation | 5-117 |
Revisor's Note:
In the 1996 session of the legislature all sections in effect at such time were repealed and the numbers reassigned to the new sections of the revised article. For the text and materials relating to the prior law, see the appropriate section in Volume 7 of the K.S.A., copyright 1983, and the 1995 Supplement to such volume.
Article 7 was revised in its entirety in the 2007 session of the Kansas legislature by repealing all of the existing sections therein and replacing the same with sections that became effective on July 1, 2008. Conforming amendments were also made to other articles of the code.
Part 1.—GENERAL
84-7-101 Short title.Part 2.—WAREHOUSE RECEIPTS: SPECIAL PROVISIONS
84-7-201 Person that may issue a warehouse receipt; storage under bond.Part 3.—BILLS OF LADING: SPECIAL PROVISIONS
84-7-301 Liability for nonreceipt or misdescription; "said to contain"; "shipper's weight, load and count"; improper handling.Part 4.—WAREHOUSE RECEIPTS AND BILLS OF LADING: GENERAL OBLIGATIONS
84-7-401 Irregularities in issue of receipt or bill or conduct of issuer.Part 5.—WAREHOUSE RECEIPTS AND BILLS OF LADING: NEGOTIATION AND TRANSFER
84-7-501 Form of negotiation and requirements of due negotiation.Part 6.—WAREHOUSE RECEIPTS AND BILLS OF LADING: MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
84-7-601 Lost, stolen or destroyed documents of title.Part 7.—MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
84-7-701, 84-7-702 Reserved.OFFICIAL UCC PREFATORY NOTE
The present version of Article 8 is the product of a major revision made necessary by the fact that the prior version of Article 8 did not adequately deal with the system of securities holding through securities intermediaries that has developed in the past few decades. Although the prior version of Article 8 did contain some provisions dealing with securities holding through securities intermediaries, these were engrafted onto a structure designed for securities practices of earlier times. The resulting legal uncertainties adversely affected all participants. The revision is intended to eliminate these uncertainties by providing a modern legal structure for current securities holding practices.
I. EVOLUTION OF SECURITIES HOLDING SYSTEMSA. The Traditional Securities Holding System
The original version of Article 8, drafted in the 1940s and 1950s, was based on the assumption that possession and delivery of physical certificates are the key elements in the securities holding system. Ownership of securities was traditionally evidenced by possession of the certificates, and changes were accomplished by delivery of the certificates.
Transfer of securities in the traditional certificate-based system was a complicated, labor-intensive process. Each time securities were traded, the physical certificates had to be delivered from the seller to the buyer, and in the case of registered securities the certificates had to be surrendered to the issuer or its transfer agent for registration of transfer. As is well known, the mechanical problems of processing the paperwork for securities transfers reached crisis proportions in the late 1960s, leading to calls for the elimination of the physical certificate and development of modern electronic systems for recording ownership of securities and transfers of ownership. That was the focus of the revision effort that led to the promulgation of the 1978 amendments to Article 8 concerning uncertificated securities.
B. The Uncertificated Securities System Envisioned by the 1978 AmendmentsIn 1978, amendments to Article 8 were approved to establish the commercial law rules that were thought necessary to permit the evolution of a system in which issuers would no longer issue certificates. The Drafting Committee that produced the 1978 amendments was given a fairly limited charge. It was to draft the revisions that would be needed for uncertificated securities, but otherwise leave the Article 8 rules unchanged. Accordingly, the 1978 amendments primarily took the form of adding parallel provisions dealing with uncertificated securities to the existing rules of Article 8 on certificated securities.
The system of securities holding contemplated by the 1978 amendments differed from the traditional system only in that ownership of securities would not be evidenced by physical certificates. It was contemplated that changes in ownership would continue to be reflected by changes in the records of the issuer. The main difference would be that instead of surrendering an indorsed certificate for registration of transfer, an instruction would be sent to the issuer directing it to register the transfer. Although a system of the sort contemplated by the 1978 amendments may well develop in the coming decades, this has not yet happened for most categories of securities. Mutual funds shares have long been issued in uncertificated form, but virtually all other forms of publicly traded corporate securities are still issued in certificated form. Individual investors who wish to be recorded as registered owners on the issuers' books still obtain and hold physical certificates. The certificates representing the largest portion of the shares of publicly traded companies, however, are not held by the beneficial owners, but by clearing corporations. Settlement of securities trading occurs not by delivery of certificates or by registration of transfer on the records of the issuers or their transfer agents, but by computer entries in the records of clearing corporations and securities intermediaries. That is quite different from the system envisioned by the 1978 amendments.
C. Evolution of the Indirect Holding SystemAt the time of the "paperwork crunch" in the late 1960s, the trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange that so seriously strained the capacities of the clearance and settlement system was in the range of 10 million shares per day. Today, the system can easily handle trading volume on routine days of hundreds of millions of shares. This processing capacity could have been achieved only by the application of modern electronic information processing systems. Yet the legal rules under which the system operates are not the uncertificated securities provisions of Article 8. To understand why this is so, one must delve at least a bit deeper into the operations of the current system.
If one examines the shareholder records of large corporations whose shares are publicly traded on the exchanges or in the over the counter market, one would find that one entity-Cede & Co.-is listed as the shareholder of record of somewhere in the range of sixty to eighty per cent of the outstanding shares of all publicly traded companies. Cede & Co. is the nominee name used by The Depository Trust Company ("DTC"), a limited purpose trust company organized under New York law for the purpose of acting as a depository to hold securities for the benefit of its participants, some 600 or so broker-dealers and banks. Essentially all of the trading in publicly held companies is executed through the broker-dealers who are participants in DTC, and the great bulk of public securities-the sixty to eighty per cent figure noted above-are held by these broker-dealers and banks on behalf of their customers. If all of these broker-dealers and banks held physical certificates, then as trades were executed each day it would be necessary to deliver the certificates back and forth among these broker-dealers and banks. By handing all of their securities over to a common depository all of these deliveries can be eliminated. Transfers can be accomplished by adjustments to the participants' DTC accounts.
Although the use of a common depository eliminates the needs for physical deliveries, an enormous number of entries would still have to be made on DTC's books if each transaction between its participants were recorded one by one on DTC's books. Any two major broker-dealers may have executed numerous trades with each other in a given security on a single day. Significant processing efficiency has been achieved by netting all of the transactions among the participants that occur each day, so that entries need be made on the depository's books only for the net changes in the positions of each participant at the end of each day. This clearance and netting function might well be performed by the securities exchanges or by the same institution that acts as the depository, as is the case in many other securities markets around the world. In the United States, however, this clearance and netting function is carried out by a separate corporation, National Securities Clearing Corporation ("NSCC"). All that needs to be done to settle each day's trading is for NSCC to compute the net receive and deliver obligations and to instruct DTC to make the corresponding adjustments in the participants' accounts.
The broker-dealers and banks who are participants in the DTC-NSCC system in turn provide analogous clearance and settlement functions to their own customers. If Customer A buys 100 shares of XYZ Co. through Broker, and Customer B sells 100 shares of XYZ Co. through the same Broker, the trade can be settled by entries on Broker's books. Neither DTC's books showing Broker's total position in XYZ Co., nor XYZ Co.'s books showing DTC's total position in XYZ Co., need be changed to reflect the settlement of this trade. One can readily appreciate the significance of the settlement function performed at this level if one considers that a single major bank may be acting as securities custodian for hundreds or thousands of mutual funds, pension funds, and other institutional investors. On any given day, the customers of that bank may have entered into an enormous number of trades, yet it is possible that relatively little of this trading activity will result in any net change in the custodian bank's positions on the books of DTC.
Settlement of market trading in most of the major U.S. securities markets is now effected primarily through some form of netted clearance and depository system. Virtually all publicly traded corporate equity securities, corporate debt securities, and municipal debt securities are now eligible for deposit in the DTC system. Recently, DTC has implemented a similar depository settlement system for the commercial paper market, and could, but for limitations in present Article 8, handle other forms of short-term money market securities such as bankers' acceptances. For trading in mortgage-backed securities, such as Ginnie Mae's, a similar depository settlement system has been developed by Participants Trust Company. For trading in U.S. Treasury securities, a somewhat analogous book-entry system is operated under Treasury rules by the Federal Reserve System.
D. Need for Different Legal Rules for the Direct and Indirect Holding SystemsBoth the traditional paper-based system, and the uncertificated system contemplated by the 1978 amendments, can be described as "direct" securities holding systems; that is, the beneficial owners of securities have a direct relationship with the issuer of the securities. For securities in bearer form, whoever has possession of the certificate thereby has a direct claim against the issuer. For registered securities, the registered owner, whether of certificated or uncertificated securities, has a direct relationship with the issuer by virtue of being recorded as the owner on the records maintained by the issuer or its transfer agent.
By contrast, the DTC depository system for corporate equity and debt securities can be described as an "indirect holding" system, that is, the issuer's records do not show the identity of all of the beneficial owners. Instead, a large portion of the outstanding securities of any given issue are recorded on the issuer's records as belonging to a depository. The depository's records in turn show the identity of the banks or brokers who are its members, and the records of those securities intermediaries show the identity of their customers.
Even after the 1978 amendments, the rules of Article 8 did not deal effectively with the indirect holding system. The rules of the 1978 version of Article 8 were based on the assumption that changes in ownership of securities would still be effected either by delivery of physical certificates or by registration of transfer on the books of the issuer. Yet in the indirect holding system, settlement of the vast majority of securities trades does not involve either of these events. For most, if not all, of the securities held through DTC, physical certificates representing DTC's total position do exist. These "jumbo certificates," however, are never delivered from person to person. Just as nothing ever happens to these certificates, virtually nothing happens to the official registry of stockholders maintained by the issuers or their transfer agents to reflect the great bulk of the changes in ownership of shares that occur each day.
The principal mechanism through which securities trades are settled today is not delivery of certificates or registration of transfers on the issuer's books, but netted settlement arrangements and accounting entries on the books of a multi-tiered pyramid of securities intermediaries. Herein is the basic problem. Virtually all of the rules of the prior version of Article 8 specifying how changes in ownership of securities are effected, and what happens if something goes awry in the process, were keyed to the concepts of a transfer of physical certificates or registration of transfers on the books of the issuers, yet that is not how changes in ownership are actually reflected in the modern securities holding system.
II. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF REVISED ARTICLE 8A. Drafting Approach-Neutrality Principle
One of the objectives of the revision of Article 8 is to devise a structure of commercial law rules for investment securities that will be sufficiently flexible to respond to changes in practice over the next few decades. If it were possible to predict with confidence how the securities holding and trading system would develop, one could produce a statute designed specifically for the system envisioned. Recent experience, however, shows the danger of that approach. The 1978 amendments to Article 8 were based on the assumption that the solution to the problems that plagued the paper-based securities trading system of the 1960s would be the development of uncertificated securities. Instead, the solution thus far has been the development of the indirect holding system.
If one thought that the indirect holding system would come to dominate securities holding, one might draft Article 8 rules designed primarily for the indirect holding system, giving limited attention to the traditional direct holding system of security certificates or any uncertificated version of a direct holding system that might develop in the future. It is, however, by no means clear whether the long-term evolution will be toward decreased or increased use of direct holdings. At present, investors in most equity securities can either hold their securities through brokers or request that certificates be issued in their own name. For the immediate future it seems likely that that situation will continue. One can imagine many plausible scenarios for future evolution. Direct holding might become less and less common as investors become more familiar and comfortable with book-entry systems and/or as market or regulatory pressures develop that discourage direct holding. One might note, for example, that major brokerage firms are beginning to impose fees for having certificates issued and that some observers have suggested that acceleration of the cycle for settlement of securities trades might be facilitated by discouraging customers from obtaining certificates. On the other hand, other observers feel that it is important for investors to retain the option of holding securities in certificated form, or at least in some form that gives them a direct relationship with the issuer and does not require them to hold through brokers or other securities intermediaries. Some groups within the securities industry are beginning to work on development of uncertificated systems that would preserve this option.
Revised Article 8 takes a neutral position on the evolution of securities holding practices. The revision was based on the assumption that the path of development will be determined by market and regulatory forces and that the Article 8 rules should not seek to influence that development in any specific direction. Although various drafting approaches were considered, it became apparent early in the revision process that the differences between the direct holding system and the indirect holding system are sufficiently significant that it is best to treat them as separate systems requiring different legal concepts. Accordingly, while the rules of the prior version of Article 8 have, in large measure, been retained for the direct holding system, a new Part 5 has been added, setting out the commercial law rules for the indirect securities holding system. The principle of neutrality does carry some implications for the design of specific Article 8 rules. At the very least, the Article 8 rules for all securities holding systems should be sufficiently clear and predictable that uncertainty about the governing law does not itself operate as a constraint on market developments. In addition, an effort has been made to identify and eliminate any Article 8 rules that might act as impediments to any of the foreseeable paths of development.
B. Direct Holding SystemWith respect to securities held directly, Revised Article 8 retains the basic conceptual structure and rules of present law. Part 2, which is largely unchanged from former law, deals with certain aspects of the obligations of issuers. The primary purpose of the rules of Part 2 is to apply to investment securities the principles of negotiable instruments law that preclude the issuers of negotiable instruments from asserting defenses against subsequent purchasers. Part 3 deals with transfer for securities held directly. One of its principal purposes is to apply to investment securities the principles of negotiable instruments law that protect purchasers of negotiable instruments against adverse claims. Part 4 deals with the process of registration of transfer by the issuer or transfer agent.
Although the basic concepts of the direct holding system rules have been retained, there are significant changes in terminology, organization, and statement of the rules. Some of the major changes are as follows:
Simplification of Part 3. The addition of the new Part 5 on the indirect holding system makes unnecessary the rather elaborate provisions of former law, such as those in Section 8-313, that sought to fit the indirect holding system into the conceptual structure of the direct holding system. Thus, Part 3 of Revised Article 8 is, in many respects, more similar to the original version of Article 8 than to the 1978 version.
Protected purchaser. The prior version of Article 8 used the term "bona fide purchaser" to refer to those purchasers who took free from adverse claims, and it used the phrase "good faith" in stating the requirements for such status. In order to promote clarity, Revised Article 8 states the rules that protect purchasers against adverse claims without using the phrase "good faith" and uses the new term "protected purchaser" to refer to purchasers in the direct holding system who are protected against adverse claims. See Sections 8-105 and 8-303.
Certificated versus uncertificated securities. The rules of the 1978 version of Article 8 concerning uncertificated securities have been simplified considerably. The 1978 version added provisions on uncertificated securities parallel to the provisions of the original version of Article 8 dealing with securities represented by certificates. Thus, virtually every section had one set of rules on "certificated securities" and another on "uncertificated securities." The constant juxtaposition of "certificated securities" and "uncertificated securities" has probably led readers to overemphasize the differences. Revised Article 8 has a unitary definition of "security" in Section 8-102(a)(15) which refers to the underlying intangible interest or obligation. In Revised Article 8, the difference between certificated and uncertificated is treated not as an inherent attribute of the security but as a difference in the means by which ownership is evidenced. The terms "certificated" and "uncertificated" security are used in those sections where it is important to distinguish between these two means of evidencing ownership. Revised Article 8 also deletes the provisions of the 1978 version concerning "transaction statements" and "registered pledges." These changes are explained in the Revision Notes 3, 4, and 5, below.
Scope of Parts 2, 3, and 4. The rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 deal only with the rights of persons who hold securities directly. In typical securities holding arrangements in the modern depository system, only the clearing corporation would be a direct holder of the securities. Thus, while the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 would apply to the relationship between the issuer and the clearing corporation, they have no application to relationships below the clearing corporation level. Under Revised Article 8, a person who holds a security through a broker or securities custodian has a security entitlement governed by the Part 5 rules but is not the direct holder of the security. Thus, the rules of Revised Section 8-303 on the rights of "protected purchasers," which are the analog of the bona fide purchaser rules of former Article 8, do not apply to persons who hold securities through brokers or securities custodians. Instead, Part 5 contains its own rules to protect investors in the indirect holding system against adverse claims. See Revised Section 8-502.
C. Indirect Holding SystemAlthough the Revised Article 8 provisions for the indirect holding system are somewhat complex, the basic approach taken can be summarized rather briefly. Revised Article 8 abandons the attempt to describe all of the complex relationships in the indirect holding system using the simple concepts of the traditional direct holding system. Instead, new rules specifically designed for the indirect holding system are added as Part 5 of Article 8. In a nutshell, the approach is to describe the core of the package of rights of a person who holds a security through a securities intermediary and then give that package of rights a name.
The starting point of Revised Article 8's treatment of the indirect holding system is the concept of "security entitlement." The term is defined in Section 8-102(a)(17) as "the rights and property interest of an entitlement holder with respect to a financial asset specified in Part 5." Like many legal concepts, however, the meaning of "security entitlement" is to be found less in any specific definition than in the matrix of rules that use the term. In a sense, then, the entirety of Part 5 is the definition of "security entitlement" because the Part 5 rules specify the rights and property interest that comprise a security entitlement.
Part 5 begins by specifying, in Section 8-501, when an entitlement holder acquires a security entitlement. The basic rule is very simple. A person acquires a security entitlement when the securities intermediary credits the financial asset to the person's account. The remaining sections of Part 5 specify the content of the security entitlement concept. Section 8-504 provides that a securities intermediary must maintain a sufficient quantity of financial assets to satisfy the claims of all of its entitlement holders. Section 8-503 provides that these financial assets are held by the intermediary for the entitlement holders, are not the property of the securities intermediary, and are not subject to claims of the intermediary's general creditors. Thus, a security entitlement is itself a form of property interest not merely an in personam claim against the intermediary. The concept of a security entitlement does, however, include a package of in personam rights against the intermediary. Other Part 5 rules identify the core of this package of rights, subject to specification by agreement and regulatory law. See Sections 8-505 through 8-509.
To illustrate the basic features of the new rules, consider a simple example of two investors, John and Mary, each of whom owns 1000 shares of Acme, Inc., a publicly traded company. John has a certificate representing his 1000 shares and is registered on the books maintained by Acme's transfer agent as the holder of record of those 1000 shares. Accordingly, he has a direct claim against the issuer, he receives dividends and distributions directly from the issuer, and he receives proxies directly from the issuer for purposes of voting his shares. Mary has chosen to hold her securities through her broker. She does not have a certificate and is not registered on Acme's stock books as a holder of record. She enjoys the economic and corporate benefits of ownership but does so through her broker and any other intermediaries in the chain back to the issuer. John's interest in Acme common stock would be described under Revised Article 8 as a direct interest in a "security." Thus, if John grants a security interest in his investment position, the collateral would be described as a "security." Mary's interest in Acme common stock would be described under Revised Article 8 as a "security entitlement." Thus, if Mary grants a security interest in her investment position, the collateral would be described as a "security entitlement."
For many purposes, there is no need to differentiate among the various ways that an investor might hold securities. For example, for purposes of financial accounting, John and Mary would each be described as the owner of 1000 shares of Acme common stock. For those purposes it is irrelevant that John is the registered owner and has physical possession of a certificate, while Mary holds her position through an intermediary. Revised Article 8 recognizes this point in Section 8-104 which provides that acquiring a security entitlement and acquiring a security certificate are different ways of acquiring an interest in the underlying security.
D. Security InterestsAlong with the revision of Article 8, significant changes have been made in the rules concerning security interests in securities. The revision returns to the pre-1978 structure in which the rules on security interests in investment securities are set out in Article 9, rather than in Article 8. The changes in Article 9 are, in part, conforming changes to adapt Article 9 to the new concept of a security entitlement. The Article 9 changes, however, go beyond that to establish a simplified structure for the creation and perfection of security interests in investment securities, whether held directly or indirectly. In order to avoid disruption of the current numbering sequence of Article 9, the new rules on security interests in investment securities are primarily set out in a new Section 9-115.
The Revised Article 9 rules continue the long-established principle that a security interest in a security represented by a certificate can be perfected by a possessory pledge. The revised rules, however, do not require that all security interests in investment securities be implemented by procedures based on the conceptual structure of the common law pledge. Under the revised Article 9 rules, a security interest in securities can be created pursuant to Section 9-203 in the same fashion as a security interest in any other form of property, that is, by agreement between the debtor and secured party. There is no requirement of a "transfer," "delivery," or any similar action, physical or metaphysical, for the creation of an effective security interest. A security interest in securities is, of course, a form of property interest, but the only requirements for creation of this form of property interest are those set out in Section 9-203.
The perfection methods for security interests in investment securities are set out in Revised Section 9-115(4). The basic rule is that a security interest may be perfected by "control." The concept of control, defined in Section 8-106, plays an important role in both Article 8 and Article 9. In general, obtaining control means taking the steps necessary to place the lender in a position where it can have the collateral sold off without the further cooperation of the debtor. Thus, for certificated securities, a lender obtains control by taking possession of the certificate with any necessary indorsement. For securities held through a securities intermediary, the lender can obtain control in two ways. First, the lender obtains control if it becomes the entitlement holder; that is, has the securities positions transferred to an account in its own name. Second, the lender obtains control if the securities intermediary agrees to act on instructions from the secured party to dispose of the positions, even though the debtor remains the entitlement holder. Such an arrangement suffices to give the lender control even though the debtor retains the right to trade and exercise other ordinary rights of an entitlement holder.
Except where the debtor is itself a securities firm, filing of an ordinary Article 9 financing statement is also a permissible alternative method of perfection. However, filing with respect to investment property does not assure the lender the same protections as for other forms of collateral, since the priority rules provide that a secured party who obtains control has priority over a secured party who does not obtain control.
The details of the new rules on security interests, as applied both to the retail level and to arrangements for secured financing of securities dealers, are explained in the Official Comments to Section 9-115.
III. SCOPE AND APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 8A. Terminology
To understand the scope and application of the rules of Revised Article 8, and the related security interest rules of Article 9, it is necessary to understand some of the key defined terms:
Security, defined in Section 8-102(a)(15), has essentially the same meaning as under the prior version of Article 8. The difference in Revised Article 8 is that the definition of security does not determine the coverage of all of Article 8. Although the direct holding system rules in Parts 2, 3, and 4 apply only to securities, the indirect holding system rules of Part 5 apply to the broader category of "financial assets."
Financial asset, defined in Section 8-103(a)(9), is the term used to describe the forms of property to which the indirect holding system rules of Part 5 apply. The term includes not only "securities," but also other interests, obligations, or property that are held through securities accounts. The best illustration of the broader scope of the term financial asset is the treatment of money market instruments, discussed below.
Security entitlement, defined in Section 8-103(a)(17), is the term used to describe the property interest of a person who holds a security or other financial asset through a securities intermediary.
Securities intermediary, defined in Section 8-103(a)(14), is the term used for those who hold securities for others in the indirect holding system. It covers clearing corporations, banks acting as securities custodians, and brokers holding securities for their customers.
Entitlement holder, defined in Section 8-103(a)(7), is the term used for those who hold securities through intermediaries.
Securities account, defined in Section 8-501(a), describes the form of arrangement between a securities intermediary and an entitlement holder that gives rise to a security entitlement. As explained below, the definition of securities account plays a key role in setting the scope of the indirect holding system rules of Part 5.
Investment property, defined in Section 9-115(1)(f), determines the application of the new Article 9 rules for secured transactions. In addition to securities and security entitlements, the Article 9 term "investment property" is defined to include "securities account" in order to simplify the drafting of the Article 9 rules that permit debtors to grant security interests either in specific security entitlements or in an entire securities account. The other difference between the coverage of the Article 8 and Article 9 terms is that commodity futures contracts are excluded from Article 8, but are included within the Article 9 definition of "investment property." Thus, the new Article 9 rules apply to security interests in commodity futures positions as well as security interests in securities positions.
B. Notes on Scope of Article 8Article 8 is in no sense a comprehensive codification of the law governing securities or transactions in securities. Although Article 8 deals with some aspects of the rights of securities holders against issuers, most of that relationship is governed not by Article 8, but by corporation, securities, and contract law. Although Article 8 deals with some aspects of the rights and duties of parties who transfer securities, it is not a codification of the law of contracts for the purchase or sale of securities. (The prior version of Article 8 did include a few miscellaneous rules on contracts for the sale of securities, but these have not been included in Revised Article 8). Although the new indirect holding system rules of Part 5 deal with some aspects of the relationship between brokers or other securities professionals and their customers, Article 8 is still not in any sense a comprehensive code of the law governing the relationship between broker-dealers or other securities intermediaries and their customers. Most of the law governing that relationship is the common law of contract and agency, supplemented or supplanted by regulatory law.
The distinction between the aspects of the broker-customer relationship that are and are not dealt with in this Article may be illuminated by considering the differing roles of the broker in a typical securities transaction, in which the broker acts as agent for the customer. When a customer directs a broker to buy or sell securities for the customer, and the broker executes that trade on a securities exchange or in the over the counter market, the broker is entering into a contract for the purchase or sale of the securities as agent of the customer. The rules of the exchange, practices of the market, or regulatory law will specify when and how that contract is to be performed. For example, today the terms of the standard contract for trades in most corporate securities require the seller to deliver the securities, and the buyer to pay for them, five business days after the date that the contract was made, although the SEC has recently promulgated a rule that will accelerate the cycle to require settlement in three business days. In the common speech of the industry, the transaction in which the broker enters into a contract for the purchase or sale of the securities is referred to as executing the trade, and the transaction in which the securities are delivered and paid for is referred to as settlement. Thus, the current settlement cycle is known as T+5, that is, settlement is required on the fifth business day after the date of the trade, and the new SEC rule will change it to T+3. One must be careful in moving from the jargon of the securities industry to the jargon of the legal profession. For most practical economic purposes, the trade date is the date that counts, because that is the time at which the price is set, the risk of price changes shifts, and the parties become bound to perform. For purposes of precise legal analysis, however, the securities phrase "trade" or "execute a trade" means enter into a contract for the purchase or sale of the securities. The transfer of property interests occurs not at the time the contract is made but at the time it is performed, that is, at settlement.
The distinction between trade and settlement is important in understanding the scope of Article 8. Article 8 deals with the settlement phase of securities transactions. It deals with the mechanisms by which interests in securities are transferred, and the rights and duties of those who are involved in the transfer process. It does not deal with the process of entering into contracts for the transfer of securities or regulate the rights and duties of those involved in the contracting process. To use securities parlance, Article 8 deals not with the trade, but with settlement of the trade. Indeed, Article 8 does not even deal with all aspects of settlement. In a netted clearance and settlement system such as the NSCC-DTC system, individual trades are not settled one-by-one by corresponding entries on the books of any depository. Rather, settlement of the individual trades occurs through the clearing arrangements, in accordance with the rules and agreements that govern those arrangements.
In the rules dealing with the indirect holding system, one must be particularly careful to bear in mind the distinction between trade and settlement. Under Revised Article 8, the property interest of a person who holds securities through an intermediary is described as a "security entitlement," which is defined in Revised Section 8-102(a)(17) as the package of rights and property interest of an entitlement holder specified in Part 5. Saying that the security entitlement is a package of rights against the broker does not mean that all of the customer's rights against the broker are part of the security entitlement and hence part of the subject matter of Article 8. The distinction between trade and settlement remains fundamental. The rules of this Article on the indirect holding system deal with brokers and other intermediaries as media through which investors hold their financial assets. Brokers are also media through which investors buy and sell their financial assets, but that aspect of their role is not the subject of this Article.
The principal goal of the Article 8 revision project is to provide a satisfactory framework for analysis of the indirect holding system. The technique used in Revised Article 8 is to acknowledge explicitly that the relationship between a securities intermediary and its entitlement holders is sui generis, and to state the applicable commercial law rules directly, rather than by inference from a categorization of the relationship based on legal concepts of a different era. One of the consequences of this drafting technique is that in order to provide content to the concept of security entitlement it becomes necessary to identify the core of the package of rights that make up a security entitlement. Sections 8-504 through 8-508 cover such basic matters as the duty of the securities intermediary to maintain a sufficient quantity of securities to satisfy all of its entitlement holders, the duty of the securities intermediary to pass through to entitlement holder the economic and corporate law rights of ownership of the security, and the duty of the securities intermediary to comply with authorized entitlement orders originated by the entitlement holder. These sections are best thought of as definitional; that is, a relationship which does not include these rights is not the kind of relationship that Revised Article 8 deals with. Because these sections take the form of statements of the duties of an intermediary toward its entitlement holders, one must be careful to avoid a distorted perspective on what Revised Article 8 is and is not designed to do. Revised Article 8 is not, and should not be, a comprehensive body of private law governing the relationship between brokers and their customers, nor a body of regulatory law to police against improper conduct by brokers or other intermediaries. Many, if not most, aspects of the relationship between brokers and customers are governed by the common law of contract and agency, supplemented or supplanted by federal and state regulatory law. Revised Article 8 does not take the place of this body of private and regulatory law. If there are gaps in the regulatory law, they should be dealt with as such; Article 8 is not the place to address them. Article 8 deals with how interests in securities are evidenced and how they are transferred. By way of a rough analogy, one might think of Article 8 as playing the role for the securities markets that real estate recording acts play for the real estate markets. Real estate recording acts do not regulate the conduct of parties to real estate transactions; Article 8 does not regulate the conduct of parties to securities transactions.
C. Application of Revised Articles 8 and 9 to Common Investments and Investment ArrangementsIt may aid understanding to sketch briefly the treatment under Revised Articles 8 and 9 of a variety of relatively common products and arrangements.
1. Publicly traded stocks and bonds.
"Security" is defined in Revised Section 8-102(a)(15) in substantially the same terms as in the prior version of Article 8. It covers the ordinary publicly traded investment securities, such as corporate stocks and bonds. Parts 2, 3, and 4 govern the interests of persons who hold securities directly, and Part 5 governs the interest of those who hold securities indirectly.
Ordinary publicly traded securities provide a good illustration of the relationship between the direct and indirect holding system rules. The distinction between the direct and indirect holding systems is not an attribute of the securities themselves but of the way in which a particular person holds the securities. Thus, whether one looks to the direct holding system rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 or the indirect holding system rules of Part 5 will depend on the level in the securities holding system being analyzed.
Consider, for example, corporate stock which is held through a depository, such as DTC. The clearing corporation, or its nominee, is the registered owner of all of the securities it holds on behalf of all of its participants. Thus the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Revised Article 8 apply to the relationship between the issuer and the clearing corporation. If, as is typically the case today, the securities are still represented by certificates, the clearing corporation will be the holder of the security certificate or certificates representing its total holdings. So far as Article 8 is concerned, the relationship between the issuer and the clearing corporation is no different from the relationship between the issuer and any other registered owner.
The relationship between the clearing corporation and its participants is governed by the indirect holding system rules of Part 5. At that level, the clearing corporation is the securities intermediary and the participant is the entitlement holder. If the participant is itself a securities intermediary, such as a broker holding for its customers or a bank acting as a securities custodian, the Part 5 rules apply to its relationship to its own customers. At that level the broker or bank custodian is the securities intermediary and the customer is the entitlement holder. Note that the broker or bank custodian is both an entitlement holder and a securities intermediary-but is so with respect to different security entitlements. For purposes of Article 8 analysis, the customer's security entitlement against the broker or bank custodian is a different item of property from the security entitlement of the broker or bank custodian against the clearing corporation.
For investors who hold their securities directly, it makes no difference that some other investors hold their interests indirectly. Many investors today choose to hold their securities directly, becoming the registered owners on the books of the issuer and obtaining certificates registered in their names. For such investors, the addition of the new indirect holding system rules to Article 8 is entirely irrelevant. They will continue to deal directly with the issuers, or their transfer agents, under essentially the same rules as in the prior version of Article 8.
The securities holding options available to investors in a particular form of security may depend on the terms of the security. For example, direct holding is frequently not available for new issues of state and local government bonds. At one time, state and local government bonds were commonly issued in bearer form. Today, however, new issues of state and local government bonds must be in registered form and most are issued in what is known as "book-entry only" form; that is, the issuer specifies that the only person it will directly register as the registered owner is a clearing corporation. Thus, one of the inherent terms of the security is that investors can hold only in the indirect holding system.
2. Treasury securities.
U.S. government securities fall within the definition of security in Article 8 and therefore are governed by Article 8 in the same fashion as any other publicly held debt security, except insofar as Article 8 is preempted by applicable federal law or regulation.
New Treasury securities are no longer issued in certificated form; they can be held only through the book-entry systems established by the Treasury and Federal Reserve Banks. The Treasury offers a book-entry system, known as "Treasury Direct" which enables individual investors to have their positions recorded directly on the books of a Federal Reserve Bank, in a fashion somewhat similar to the uncertificated direct holding system contemplated by the 1978 version of Article 8. The governing law for the Treasury Direct system, however, is set out in the applicable Treasury regulations. The Treasury Direct system is not designed for active trading.
The great bulk of Treasury securities are held not through the Treasury Direct system but through a multi-tiered indirect holding system. The Federal Reserve Banks, acting as fiscal agent for the Treasury, maintain records of the holdings of member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and those banks in turn maintain records showing the extent to which they are holding for themselves or their own customers, including government securities dealers, institutional investors, or smaller banks who in turn may act as custodians for investors. The indirect holding system for Treasury securities was established under federal regulations promulgated in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Treasury released the proposed TRADES regulations that would have established a more comprehensive body of federal commercial law for the Treasury holding system. During the Article 8 revision process, Treasury withdrew these regulations, anticipating that once Revised Article 8 is enacted, it will be possible to base the law for the Treasury system on the new Article 8 rules.
3. Broker-customer relationships.
Whether the relationship between a broker and its customer is governed by the Article 8 Part 5 rules depends on the nature of the services that the broker performs for the customer.
Some investors use brokers only to purchase and sell securities. These customers take delivery of certificates representing the securities they purchase and hold them in their own names. When they wish to sell, they deliver the certificates to the brokers. The Article 8 Part 5 rules would not affect such customers, because the Part 5 rules deal with arrangements in which investors hold securities through securities intermediaries. The transaction between the customer and broker might be the traditional agency arrangement in which the broker buys or sells on behalf of the customer as agent for an undisclosed principal, or it might be a dealer transaction in which the "broker" as principal buys from or sells to the customer. In either case, if the customer takes delivery and holds the securities directly, she will become the "purchaser" of a "security" whose interest therein is governed by the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Article 8. If the customer meets the other requirements of Section 8-303(a), the customer who takes delivery can qualify as a "protected purchaser" who takes free from any adverse claims under Section 8-303(b). The broker's role in such transactions is primarily governed by non-Article 8 law. There are only a few provisions of Article 8 that affect the relationship between the customer and broker in such cases. See Section 8-108 (broker makes to the customer the warranties of a transferor) and 8-115 (broker not liable in conversion if customer was acting wrongfully against a third party in selling securities).
Many investors use brokers not only to purchase and sell securities, but also as the custodians through whom they hold their securities. The indirect holding system rules of Part 5 apply to the custodial aspect of this relationship. If a customer purchases a security through a broker and directs the broker to hold the security in an account for the customer, the customer will never become a "purchaser" of a "security" whose interest therein is governed by the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Article 8. Accordingly, the customer does not become a "protected purchaser" under Section 8-303. Rather, the customer becomes an "entitlement holder" who has a "security entitlement" to the security against the broker as "securities intermediary." See Section 8-501. It would make no sense to say that the customer in such a case takes an interest in the security free from all other claims, since the nature of the relationship is that the customer has an interest in common with other customers who hold positions in the same security through the same broker. Section 8-502, however, does protect an entitlement holder against adverse claims, in the sense that once the entitlement holder has acquired the package of rights that comprise a security entitlement no one else can take that package of rights away by arguing that the transaction that resulted in the customer's acquisition of the security entitlement was the traceable product of a transfer or transaction that was wrongful as against the claimant.
4. Bank deposit accounts; brokerage asset management accounts.
An ordinary bank deposit account would not fall within the definition of "security" in Section 8-102(a)(15), so the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Article 8 do not apply to deposit accounts. Nor would the relationship between a bank and its depositors be governed by the rules of Part 5 of Article 8. The Part 5 rules apply to "security entitlements." Section 8-501(b) provides that a person has a security entitlement when a securities intermediary credits a financial asset to the person's "securities account." "Securities account" is defined in Section 8-501(a) as "an account to which a financial asset is or may be credited in accordance with an agreement under which the person maintaining the account undertakes to treat the person for whom the account is maintained as entitled to exercise the rights that comprise the financial asset." The definition of securities account plays a key role in setting the scope of Part 5 of Article 8. A person has a security entitlement governed by Part 5 only if the relationship in question falls within the definition of "securities account." The definition of securities account in Section 8-501(a) excludes deposit accounts from the Part 5 rules of Article 8. One of the basic elements of the relationship between a securities intermediary and an entitlement holder is that the securities intermediary has the duty to hold exactly the quantity of securities that it carries for the account of its customers. See Section 8-504. The assets that a securities intermediary holds for its entitlement holder are not assets that the securities intermediary can use in its own proprietary business. See Section 8-503. A deposit account is an entirely different arrangement. A bank is not required to hold in its vaults or in deposit accounts with other banks a sum of money equal to the claims of all of its depositors. Banks are permitted to use depositors' funds in their ordinary lending business; indeed, that is a primary function of banks. A deposit account, unlike a securities account, is simply a debtor-creditor relationship. Thus a bank or other financial institution maintaining deposit accounts is not covered by Part 5 of Article 8.
Today, it is common for brokers to maintain securities accounts for their customers which include arrangements for the customers to hold liquid "cash" assets in the form of money market mutual fund shares. Insofar as the broker is holding money market mutual fund shares for its customer, the customer has a security entitlement to the money market mutual fund shares. It is also common for brokers to offer their customers an arrangement in which the customer has access to those liquid assets via a deposit account with a bank, whereby shares of the money market fund are redeemed to cover checks drawn on the account. Article 8 applies only to the securities account; the linked bank account remains an account covered by other law. Thus the rights and duties of the customer and the bank are governed not by Article 8, but by the relevant payment system law, such as Article 4 or Article 4A.
5. Trusts.
The indirect holding system rules of Part 5 of Article 8 are not intended to govern all relationships in which one person holds securities "on behalf of" another. Rather, the Part 5 rules come into play only if the relationship in question falls within the definition of securities account in Section 8-501(a). The definition of securities account serves the important function of ensuring that ordinary trust arrangements are not inadvertently swept into Part 5 of Article 8. Suppose that Bank serves as trustee of a trust for the benefit of Beneficiary. The corpus of the trust is invested in securities and other financial assets. Although Bank is, in some senses, holding securities for Beneficiary, the arrangement would not fall within the definition of securities account. Bank, as trustee, has not undertaken to treat Beneficiary as entitled to exercise all of the rights that comprise the portfolio securities. For instance, although Beneficiary receives the economic benefit of the portfolio securities, Beneficiary does not have the right to direct dispositions of individual trust assets or to exercise voting or other corporate law rights with respect to the individual securities. Thus Bank's obligations to Beneficiary as trustee are governed by ordinary trust law, not by Part 5 of Article 8. Of course, if Bank, as trustee, holds the securities through an intermediary, Part 5 of Revised Article 8 would govern the relationship between Bank, as entitlement holder, and the intermediary through which Bank holds the securities. It is also possible that a different department of Bank acts as the intermediary through which Bank, as trustee, holds the securities. Bank, qua securities custodian, might be holding securities for a large number of customers, including Bank's own trust department. Insofar as Bank may be regarded as acting in different capacities, Part 5 of Article 8 may be relevant to the relationship between the two sides of Bank's business. However, the relationship between Bank as trustee and the beneficiaries of the trust would remain governed by trust law, not Article 8.
6. Mutual fund shares.
Shares of mutual funds are Article 8 securities, whether the fund is organized as a corporation, business trust, or other form of entity. See Sections 8-102(a)(15) and 8-103(b). Mutual funds commonly do not issue certificates. Thus, mutual fund shares are typically uncertificated securities under Article 8.
Although a mutual fund is, in a colloquial sense, holding the portfolio securities on behalf of the fund's shareholders, the indirect holding system rules of Part 5 do not apply to the relationship between the fund and its shareholders. The Part 5 rules apply to "security entitlements." Section 8-501(e) provides that issuance of a security is not establishment of a security entitlement. Thus, because mutual funds shares do fit within the Article 8 definition of security, the relationship between the fund and its shareholders is automatically excluded from the Part 5 rules.
Of course, a person might hold shares in a mutual fund through a brokerage account. Because mutual fund shares are securities, they automatically fall within the broader term "financial asset," so the Part 5 indirect holding system rules apply to mutual fund shares that are held through securities accounts. That is, a person who holds mutual fund shares through a brokerage account could have a security entitlement to the mutual fund shares, just as the person would have a security entitlement to any other security carried in the brokerage account.
7. Stock of closely held corporations.
Ordinary corporate stock falls within the Article 8 definition of security, whether or not it is publicly traded. See Sections 8-102(a)(15) and 8-103(a). There is nothing in the new indirect holding system rules of Article 8 that would preclude their application to shares of companies that are not publicly traded. The indirect holding system rules, however, would come into play only if the shares were in fact held through a securities account with a securities intermediary. Since that is typically not the case with respect to shares of closely held corporations, transactions involving those shares will continue to be governed by the traditional rules, as amended, that are set out in Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Article 8, and the corresponding provisions of Article 9. The simplification of the Article 8 rules on uncertificated securities may, however, make the alternative of dispensing with certificates more attractive for closely held corporations.
8. Partnership interests and limited liability company shares.
Interests in partnerships or shares of limited liability companies are not Article 8 securities unless they are in fact dealt in or traded on securities exchanges or in securities markets. See Section 8-103(c). The issuers, however, may if they wish explicitly "opt-in" by specifying that the interests or shares are securities governed by Article 8. Even though interests in partnerships or shares of limited liability companies do not generally fall within the category of "security" in Article 8, they would fall within the broader term "financial asset." Accordingly, if such interests are held through a securities account with a securities intermediary, the indirect holding system rules of Part 5 apply, and the interest of a person who holds them through such an account is a security entitlement.
9. Bankers' acceptances, commercial paper, and other money market instruments.
Money market instruments, such as commercial paper, bankers' acceptances, and certificates of deposit, are good examples of a form of property that may fall within the definition of "financial asset," even though they may not fall within the definition of "security." Section 8-103(d) provides that a writing that meets the definition of security certificate under Section 8-102(a)(15) is governed by Article 8, even though it also fits within the definition of "negotiable instrument" in Article 3.
Some forms of short term money market instruments may meet the requirements of an Article 8 security, while others may not. For example, the Article 8 definition of security requires that the obligation be in registered or bearer form. Bankers' acceptances are typically payable "to order," and thus do not qualify as Article 8 securities. Thus, the obligations of the immediate parties to a bankers' acceptance are governed by Article 3, rather than Article 8. That is an entirely appropriate classification, even for those bankers' acceptance that are handled as investment media in the securities markets, because Article 8, unlike Article 3, does not contain rules specifying the standardized obligations of parties to instruments. For example, the Article 3 rules on the obligations of acceptors and drawers of drafts are necessary to specify the obligations represented by bankers' acceptances, but Article 8 contains no provisions dealing with these issues.
Immobilization through a depository system is, however, just as important for money market instruments as for traditional securities. Under the prior version of Article 8, the rules on the depository system, set out in Section 8-320, applied only to Article 8 securities. Although some forms of money market instruments could be fitted within the language of the Article 8 definition of "security," this is not true for bankers' acceptances. Accordingly, it was not thought feasible to make bankers' acceptances eligible for deposit in clearing corporations under the prior version of Article 8. Revised Article 8 solves this problem by separating the coverage of the Part 5 rules from the definition of security. Even though a bankers' acceptance or other money market instrument is an Article 3 negotiable instrument rather than an Article 8 security, it would still fall within the definition of financial asset in Section 8-102(a)(9). Accordingly, if the instrument is held through a clearing corporation or other securities intermediary, the rules of Part 5 of Article 8 apply.
10. Repurchase agreement transactions.
Repurchase agreements are an important form of transaction in the securities business, particularly in connection with government securities. Repos and reverse repos can be used for a variety of purposes. The one that is of particular concern for purposes of commercial law rules is the use of repurchase agreements as a form of financing transaction for government securities dealers. Government securities dealers typically obtain intra-day financing from their clearing banks, and then at the end of the trading day seek overnight financing from other sources to repay that day's advances from the clearing bank. Repos are the principal source of this financing. The dealer ("repo seller") sells securities to the financing source ("repo buyer") for cash, and at the same time agrees to repurchase the same or like securities the following day, or at some other brief interval. The sources of the financing include a variety of entities seeking short term investments for surplus cash, such as pension funds, business corporations, money market funds, and banks. The pricing may be computed in various ways, but in essence the price at which the dealer agrees to repurchase the securities exceeds the price paid to the dealer by an amount equivalent to interest on the funds.
The transfer of the securities from a securities dealer as repo seller to a provider of funds as repo buyer can be effected in a variety of ways. The repo buyer might be willing to allow the repo seller to keep the securities "in its hands," relying on the dealer's representation that it will hold them on behalf of the repo buyer. In the jargon of the trade, these are known as "hold-in-custody repos" or "HIC repos." At the other extreme, the repo buyer might insist that the dealer "hand over" the securities so that in the event that the dealer fails and is unable to perform its obligation to repurchase them, the repo buyer will have the securities "in its hands." The jargon for these is "delivered-out repos." A wide variety of arrangements between these two extremes might be devised, in which the securities are "handed over" to a third party with powers concerning their disposition allocated between the repo seller and repo buyer in a variety of ways.
Specification of the rights of repo buyers is complicated by the fact that the transfer of the interest in securities from the repo seller to the repo buyer might be characterized as an outright sale or as the creation of a security interest. Article 8 does not attempt to specify any categorical rules on that issue.
Article 8 sets out rules on the rights of parties who have implemented securities transactions in certain ways. It does not, however, deal with the legal characterization of the transactions that are implemented through the Article 8 mechanisms. Rather, the Article 8 rules apply without regard to the characterization of transactions for other purposes. For example, the Article 8 rules for the direct holding system provide that a person who takes delivery of a duly indorsed security certificate for value and without notice of adverse claims takes free from any adverse claims. That rule applies without regard to the character of the transaction in which the security certificate was delivered. It applies both to delivery upon original issue and to delivery upon transfer. It applies to transfers in settlement of sales and to transfers in pledge. Similarly, the Article 8 indirect holding system rules, such as the adverse claim cut-off rules in Sections 8-502 and 8-510, apply to the transactions that fall within their terms, whether those transactions were sales, secured transactions, or something else.
Repos involve transfers of interests in securities. The Article 8 rules apply to transfers of securities in repos, just as they apply to transfers of securities in any other form of transaction. The transfer of the interest in securities from the repo seller to the repo buyer might be characterized as an outright sale or as the creation of a security interest. Article 8 does not determine that question. The rules of Revised Article 8 have, however, been drafted to minimize the possibility that disputes over the characterization of the transfer in a repo would affect substantive questions that are governed by Article 8. See, e.g., Section 8-510 and Comment 4 thereto.
11. Securities lending transactions.
In a typical securities lending transaction, the owner of securities lends them to another person who needs the securities to satisfy a delivery obligation. For example, when a customer of a broker sells a security short, the broker executes an ordinary trade as seller and so must deliver the securities at settlement. The customer is "short" against the broker because the customer has an open obligation to deliver the securities to the broker, which the customer hopes to be able to satisfy by buying in the securities at a lower price. If the short seller's broker does not have the securities in its own inventory, the broker will borrow them from someone else. The securities lender delivers the securities to the borrowing broker, and the borrowing broker becomes contractually obligated to redeliver a like quantity of the same security. Securities borrowers are required to provide collateral, usually government securities, to assure performance of their redelivery obligation.
The securities lender does not retain any property interest in the securities that are delivered to the borrower. The transaction is an outright transfer in which the borrower obtains full title. The whole point of securities lending is that the borrower needs the securities to transfer them to someone else. It would make no sense to say that the lender retains any property interest in the securities it has lent. Accordingly, even if the securities borrower defaults on its redelivery obligation, the securities lender has no property interest in the original securities that could be asserted against any person to whom the securities borrower may have transferred them. One need not look to adverse claim cut-off rules to reach that result; the securities lender never had an adverse claim. The securities borrower's default is no different from any other breach of contract. The securities lender's protection is its right to foreclose on the collateral given to secure the borrower's redelivery obligation. Perhaps the best way to understand securities lending is to note that the word "loan" in securities lending transactions is used in the sense it carries in loans of money, as distinguished from loans of specific identifiable chattels. Someone who lends money does not retain any property interest in the money that is handed over to the borrower. To use civil law terminology, securities lending is mutuum, rather than commodatum. See Story on Bailments, §§ 6 and 47.
12. Traded stock options.
Stock options issued and cleared through the Options Clearing Corporation ("OCC") are a good example of a form of investment vehicle that is treated as a financial asset to which the Part 5 rules apply, but not as an Article 8 security to which Parts 2, 3, and 4 apply. OCC carries on its books the options positions of the brokerage firms which are clearing members of OCC. The clearing members in turn carry on their books the options positions of their customers. The arrangements are structurally similar to the securities depository system. In the options structure, however, there is no issuer separate from the clearing corporation. The financial assets held through the system are standardized contracts entitling the holder to purchase or sell a certain security at a set price. Rather than being an interest in or obligation of a separate issuer, an option is a contractual right against the counter-party. In order to assure performance of the options, OCC interposes itself as counter-party to each options trade. The rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 of this Article, however, do not well describe the obligations and rights of OCC. On the other hand, the rules of Part 5, and the related Article 9 rules on security interests and priorities, do provide a workable legal framework for the commercial law analysis of the rights of the participants in the options market. Accordingly, publicly traded securities options are included within the definition of "financial asset," but not "security." See Section 8-103(e). Thus, although OCC would not be an issuer of a security for purposes of this Article, it would be a clearing corporation, against whom its clearing members have security entitlements to the options positions. Similarly, the clearing members' customers have security entitlements against the clearing members. Traded stock options are also a good illustration of the point that the classification issues under Article 8 are very different from classification under other law, such as the federal securities laws. See Section 8-102(d). Stock options are treated as securities for purposes of federal securities laws, but not for purposes of Article 8.
13. Commodity futures.
Section 8-103(f) provides that a "commodity contract" is not a security or a financial asset. Section 9-115 defines commodity contract to include commodity futures contracts, commodity options, and options on commodity futures contracts that are traded on or subject to the rules of a board of trade that has been designated as a contract market for that contract pursuant to the federal commodities laws. Thus, commodity contracts themselves are not Article 8 securities to which the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4 apply, nor is the relationship between a customer and a commodity futures commission merchant governed by the Part 5 rules of Article 8. Commodity contracts, however, are included within the Article 9 definition of "investment property." Thus security interests in commodity positions are governed by essentially the same set of rules as security interests in security entitlements.
14. "Whatever else they have or may devise."
The classification question posed by the above-captioned category of investment products and arrangements is among the most difficult-and important-issue raised by the Article 8 revision process. Rapid innovation is perhaps the only constant characteristic of the securities and financial markets. The rules of Revised Article 8 are intended to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate new developments.
A common mechanism by which new financial instruments are devised is that a financial institution that holds some security, financial instrument, or pool thereof, creates interests in that asset or pool which are sold to others. It is not possible to answer in the abstract the question of how such interests are treated under Article 8, because the variety of such products is limited only by human imagination and current regulatory structures. At this general level, however, one can note that there are at least three possible treatments under Article 8 of the relationship between the institution which creates the interests and the persons who hold them. (Again, it must be borne in mind that the Article 8 classification issue may be different from the classification question posed by federal securities law or other regulation.) First, creation of the new interests in the underlying assets may constitute issuance of a new Article 8 security. In that case the relationship between the institution that created the interest and the persons who hold them is not governed by the Part 5 rules, but by the rules of Parts 2, 3, and 4. See Section 8-501(e). That, for example, is the structure of issuance of mutual fund shares. Second, the relationship between the entity creating the interests and those holding them may fit within the Part 5 rules, so that the persons are treating as having security entitlements against the institution with respect to the underlying assets. That, for example, is the structure used for stock options. Third, it may be that the creation of the new interests in the underlying assets does not constitute issuance of a new Article 8 security, nor does the relationship between the entity creating the interests and those holding them fit within the Part 5 rules. In that case, the relationship is governed by other law, as in the case of ordinary trusts.
The first of these three possibilities-that the creation of the new interest is issuance of a new security for Article 8 purposes-is a fairly common pattern. For example, an American depositary receipt facility does not maintain securities accounts but issues securities called ADRs in respect of foreign securities deposited in such facility. Similarly, custodians of government securities which issue receipts, certificates, or the like representing direct interests in those securities (sometimes interests split between principal and income) do not maintain securities accounts but issue securities representing those interests. Trusts holding assets, in a variety of structured and securitized transactions, which issue certificates or the like representing "pass-through" or undivided beneficial interests in the trust assets, do not maintain securities accounts but issue securities representing those interests.
In analyzing these classification questions, courts should take care to avoid mechanical jurisprudence based solely upon exegesis of the wording of definitions in Article 8. The result of classification questions is that different sets of rules come into play. In order to decide the classification question it is necessary to understand fully the commercial setting and consider which set of rules best fits the transaction. Rather than letting the choice of rules turn on interpretation of the words of the definitions, the interpretation of the words of the definitions should turn on the suitability of the application of the substantive rules.
IV. CHANGES FROM PRIOR (1978) VERSION OF ARTICLE 8A. Table of Disposition of Sections in Prior Version
| Article 8 (1978) | Revised Articles 8 and 9 |
|---|---|
| 8-101 | 8-101 |
| 8-102(1)(a) | 8-102(a)(4) & (15) |
| 8-102(1)(b) | 8-102(a)(15) & (18) |
| 8-102(1)(c) | 8-102(a)(15) |
| 8-102(1)(d) | 8-102(a)(13) |
| 8-102(1)(e) | 8-102(a)(2) |
| 8-102(2) | 8-202(b)(1) |
| 8-102(3) | 8-102(a)(5) |
| 8-102(4) | omitted, see Revision Note 1 |
| 8-102(5) | 8-102(b) |
| 8-102(6) | 8-102(c) |
| 8-103 | 8-209 |
| 8-104 | 8-210 |
| 8-105(1) | omitted, see Revision Note 8 |
| 8-105(2) | omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-105(3) | 8-114 |
| 8-106 | 8-110 |
| 8-107 | omitted, see Revision Note 8 |
| 8-108 | omitted, see Revision Note 5 |
| 8-201 | 8-201 |
| 8-202 | 8-202; transaction statement provisions omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-203 | 8-203 |
| 8-204 | 8-204; transaction statement provisions omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-205 | 8-205; transaction statement provisions omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-206 | 8-206; transaction statement provisions omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-207 | 8-207; registered pledge provisions omitted, see Revision Note 5 |
| 8-208 | 8-208; transaction statement provisions omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-301 | 8-302(a) & (b) |
| 8-302(1) | 8-303(a) |
| 8-302(2) | 8-102(a)(1) |
| 8-302(3) | 8-303(b) |
| 8-302(4) | 8-302(c) |
| 8-303 | 8-102(a)(3) |
| 8-304(1) | 8-105(d) |
| 8-304(2) | omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
| 8-304(3) | 8-105(b) |
| 8-305 | 8-105(c) |
| 8-306(1) | 8-108(f) |
| 8-306(2) | 8-108(a) |
| 8-306(3) | 8-108(g) |
| 8-306(4) | 8-108(h) |
| 8-306(5) | 8-108(e) |
| 8-306(6) | 8-306(h) |
| 8-306(7) | 8-108(b), 8-306(h) |
| 8-306(8) | omitted, see Revision Note 5 |
| 8-306(9) | 8-108(c) |
| 8-306(10) | 8-108(i) |
| 8-307 | 8-304(d) |
| 8-308(1) | 8-102(a)(11), 8-107 |
| 8-308(2) | 8-304(a) |
| 8-308(3) | 8-304(b) |
| 8-308(4) | 8-102(a)(12) |
| 8-308(5) | 8-107 & 8-305(a) |
| 8-308(6) | 8-107 |
| 8-308(7) | 8-107 |
| 8-308(8) | 8-107 |
| 8-308(9) | 8-304(f) & 8-305(b) |
| 8-308(10) | 8-107 |
| 8-308(11) | 8-107 |
| 8-309 | 8-304(c) |
| 8-310 | 8-304(e) |
| 8-311(a) | omitted, see 8-106(b)(2), 8-301(b)(1), 8-303 |
| 8-311(b) | 8-404 |
| 8-312 | 8-306 |
| 8-313(1)(a) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-301(a)(1) & (2) |
| 8-313(1)(b) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-301(b)(1) & (2) |
| 8-313(1)(c) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-301(a)(3) |
| 8-313(1)(d) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-501(b) |
| 8-313(1)(e) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-301(a)(2) |
| 8-313(1)(f) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-301(b)(2) |
| 8-313(1)(g) | omitted, see Revision Notes 1 & 2; see also 8-501(b), 8-111 |
| 8-313(1)(h)-(j) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 9-115 & 9-203 |
| 8-313(2) | omitted, see Revision Note 2; see also 8-503 |
| 8-313(3) | omitted, see Revision Note 2 |
| 8-313(4) | 8-102(a)(14) |
| 8-314 | omitted, see Revision Note 8 |
| 8-315 | omitted, see Revision Note 8 |
| 8-316 | 8-307 |
| 8-317 | 8-112 |
| 8-318 | 8-115 |
| 8-319 | omitted, see 8-113 and Revision Note 7 |
| 8-320 | omitted, see Revision Note 1 |
| 8-321 | omitted, see 9-115, 9-203 |
| 8-401 | 8-401 |
| 8-402 | 8-402, see Revision Note 6 |
| 8-403 | 8-403, see Revision Note 6 |
| 8-404 | 8-404 |
| 8-405(1) | 8-406 |
| 8-405(2) | 8-405(a) |
| 8-405(3) | 8-405(b) |
| 8-406 | 8-407 |
| 8-407 | omitted, see Revision Note 8 |
| 8-408 | omitted, see Revision Note 4 |
B. Revision Notes
1. Provisions of former Article 8 on clearing corporations.
The keystone of the treatment of the indirect holding system in the prior version of Article 8 was the special provision on clearing corporations in Section 8-320. Section 8-320 was added to Article 8 in 1962, at the very end of the process that culminated in promulgation and enactment of the original version of the Code. The key concepts of the original version of Article 8 were "bona fide purchaser" and "delivery." Under Section 8-302 (1962) one could qualify as a "bona fide purchaser" only if one had taken delivery of a security, and Section 8-313 (1962) specified what counted as a delivery.
Section 8-320 was added to take account of the development of the system in which trades can be settled by netted book-entry movements at a depository without physical deliveries of certificates. Rather than reworking the basic concepts, however, Section 8-320 brought the depository system within Article 8 by definitional fiat. Subsection (a) of Section 8-320 (1962) stated that a transfer or pledge could be effected by entries on the books of a central depository, and subsection (b) stated that such an entry "has the effect of a delivery of a security in bearer form or duly indorsed in blank." In 1978, Section 8-320 was revised to conform it to the general substitution of the concept of "transfer" for "delivery," but the basic structure remained the same. Under the 1978 version of Article 8, the only book-entry transfers that qualified the transferee for bona fide purchaser rights were those made on the books of a clearing corporation. See Sections 8-302(1)(c), 8-313(1)(g), and 8-320. Thus, for practical purposes, the indirect holding system rules of the prior version of Article 8 required that the securities be held by a clearing corporation in accordance with the central depository rules of Section 8-320.
Some of the definitional provisions concerning clearing corporation in the prior version of Article 8 seem to have conflated the commercial law rules on the effect of book-entry transactions with issues about the regulation of entities that are acting as clearing corporations. For example, the Section 8-320 rules that gave effect to book-entry transfers applied only if the security was "in the custody of the clearing corporation, another clearing corporation, [or] a custodian bank." "Custodian bank" was defined in Section 8-102(4) as "a bank or trust company that is supervised and examined by state or federal authority having supervision over banks and is acting as custodian for a clearing corporation." Although this was probably inadvertent, these definitional provisions have operated as an obstacle to the development of clearing arrangements for global trading, since they effectively precluded clearing corporations from using foreign banks as custodians.
Revised Article 8 is based on the view that Article 8 is not the proper place for regulatory decisions about whether certain sorts of financial institutions should or should not be permitted to engage in a particular aspect of the securities business, such as acting as a clearing corporation, or how they should be permitted to conduct that business. Rather, Article 8 should deal only with the commercial law questions of what duties and rights flow from doing business as a clearing corporation, leaving it to other regulatory law to decide which entities should be permitted to act as clearing corporations, and to regulate their activities. Federal securities laws now establish a detailed regulatory structure for clearing corporations; there is no need for Article 8 to duplicate parts of that structure. Revised Article 8 deletes all provision of the prior version which had the effect of specifying how clearing corporations should conduct their operations. For example, Revised Article 8 deletes the definition of "custodian bank," which operated in the prior version only as a regulatory restriction on how clearing corporations could hold securities.
In general, the structure of Revised Article 8 is such that there is relatively little need for special provisions on clearing corporations. Book-entry transactions effected through clearing corporations are treated under the same rules in Part 5 as book-entry transactions effected through any other securities intermediary. Accordingly, Revised Article 8 has no direct analog of the special provisions in Section 8-320 on transfers on the books of clearing corporations.
2. Former Section 8-313-"Transfer."
Section 8-313 of the 1978 version of Article was extremely complicated, because it attempted to cover many different issues. The following account of the evolution of Section 8-313 may assist in understanding why a different approach is taken in Revised Article 8. This explanation is, however, intended not as an actual account of historical events, but as a conceptual reconstruction, devised from the perspective of, and with the benefit of, hindsight.
The original objective of Article 8 was to ensure that certificates representing investment securities would be "negotiable" in the sense that purchasers would be protected by the bona fide purchaser rules. The requirements for bona fide purchaser status were that the purchaser had to (i) take delivery of the security and (ii) give value in good faith and without notice of adverse claims. Section 8-313 specified what counted as a "delivery," and Section 8-302 specified the other requirements.
The 1978 amendments added provisions on uncertificated securities, but the basic organizational pattern was retained. Section 8-302 continued to state the requirements of value, good faith, and lack of notice for good faith purchase, and Section 8-313 stated the mechanism by which the purchase had to be implemented. Delivery as defined in the original version of Section 8-313 had a meaning similar to the concept known in colloquial securities jargon as "good delivery"; that is, physical delivery with any necessary indorsement. Although the word "delivery" has now come to be used in securities parlance in a broader sense than physical delivery, when the provisions for uncertificated securities were added it was thought preferable to use another word. Thus, the word "transfer" was substituted for "delivery" in Section 8-313.
The 1978 amendments also moved the rules governing security interests in securities from Article 9 to Article 8, though the basic conceptual structure of the common law of pledge was retained. Since a pledge required a delivery, and since the term transfer had been substituted for delivery, the 1978 amendments provided that in order to create a security interest there must be a "transfer," in the defined Article 8 sense, from the debtor to the secured party. Accordingly, provisions had to be added to Section 8-313 so that any of the steps that should suffice to create a perfected security interest would be deemed to constitute a "transfer" within the meaning of Section 8-313. Thus, the Section 8-313 rules on "transfer," which had in the previous version dealt only with what counted as a delivery that qualified one for bona fide purchaser status, became the statutory locus for all of the rules on creation and perfection of security interests in securities. Accordingly the rather elaborate rules of subsections (1)(h), (1)(i), and (1)(j) were added.
Having expanded Section 8-313 to the point that it served as the rule specifying the formal requirements for transfer of all significant forms of interests in securities, it must have seemed only logical to take the next step and make the Section 8-313 rules the exclusive means of transferring interests in securities. Thus, while the prior version had stated that "Delivery to a purchaser occurs when ...", the 1978 version stated that "Transfer of a security or a limited interest (including a security interest) therein to a purchaser occurs only ...." Having taken that step, however, it then became necessary to ensure that anyone who should be regarded as having an interest in a security would be covered by some provision of Section 8-313. Thus, the provisions of subsection (1)(d)(ii) and (iii) were added to make it possible to say that the customers of a securities intermediary who hold interests in securities held by the intermediary in fungible bulk received "transfers."
Section 8-313(1)(d) was the key provision in the 1978 version dealing with the indirect holding system at the level below securities depositories. It operated in essentially the same fashion as Section 8-320; that is, it stated that when a broker or bank holding securities in fungible bulk makes entries on its books identifying a quantity of the fungible bulk as belonging to the customer, that action is treated as a "transfer"-in the special Section 8-313 sense-of an interest in the security from the intermediary to the customer.
Revised Article 8 has no direct analog of the 1978 version of Section 8-313. The rules on secured transactions have been returned to Article 9, so subsections of Section 8-313 (1978) dealing with security interests are deleted from Article 8. Insofar as portions of Section 8-313 (1978) were designed to specify the formal requirements for transferees to qualify for protection against adverse claims, their place is taken by Revised Section 8-301, which defines "delivery," in a fashion somewhat akin to the pre-1978 version of Section 8-313. The descendant of the provisions of Section 8-313 (1978) dealing with the indirect holding system is Revised Section 8-501 which specifies when a person acquires a security entitlement. Section 8-501, however, is based on a different analysis of the transaction in which a customer acquires a position in the indirect holding system. The transaction is not described as a "transfer" of an interest in some portion of a fungible bulk of securities held by the securities intermediary but as the creation of a security entitlement. Accordingly, just as Revised Article 8 has no direct analog of the Section 8-320 rules on clearing corporation transfers, it has no direct analog of the Section 8-313(1) rules on "transfers" of interests in securities held in fungible bulk.
3. Uncertificated securities provisions.
Given the way that securities holding practices have evolved, the sharp distinction that the 1978 version of Article 8 drew between certificated securities and uncertificated securities has become somewhat misleading. Since many provisions of the 1978 version had separate subsections dealing first with certificated securities and then with uncertificated securities, and since people intuitively realize that the volume of trading in the modern securities markets could not possibly be handled by pushing around certificates, it was only natural for a reader of the statute to conclude that the uncertificated securities provisions of Article 8 were the basis of the book-entry system. That, however, is not the case. Although physical delivery of certificates plays little role in the settlement system, most publicly traded securities are still, in legal theory, certificated securities. To use clearance and settlement jargon, the book-entry securities holding system has used "immobilization" rather than "dematerialization."
The important legal and practical difference is between the direct holding system, in which the beneficial owners have a direct relationship with the issuer, and the indirect holding system, in which securities are held through tiers of securities intermediaries. Accordingly, in Revised Article 8 the contrast between certificated securities and uncertificated securities has been minimized or eliminated as much as possible in stating the substantive provisions.
4. Transaction statements.
Although the 1978 provisions on uncertificated securities contemplated a system in which there would be no definitive certificates as reifications of the underlying interests or obligations, the 1978 amendments did not really dispense with all requirements of paper evidence of securities holding. The 1978 amendments required issuers of uncertificated securities to send paper "transaction statements" upon registration of transfer. Section 8-408 regulated the content and format of these transaction statements in considerable detail. The statements had to be in writing, include specific information, and contain a conspicuous legend stating that "This statement is merely a record of the rights of the addressee as of the time of its issuance. Delivery of this statement, of itself, confers no rights on the recipient. This statement is neither a negotiable instrument nor a security." Issuers were required to send statements when any transfer was registered (known as "initial transaction statements") and also were required to send periodic statements at least annually and also upon any security holder's reasonable request. Fees were regulated to some extent, in that Section 8-408(8) specified that if periodic statements were sent at least quarterly, the issuer could charge for statements requested by security holders at other times.
The detailed specification of reporting requirements for issuers of uncertificated securities was quite different from the treatment of securities intermediaries. Though the prior version of Article 8 did require non-clearing corporation securities intermediaries to send confirmations of transfers-a requirement deleted in Revised Article 8-it did not regulate their content or format. Article 8 has never imposed periodic reporting requirements on securities intermediaries. Thus, reporting requirements for the indirect holding system were left to agreements and regulatory authorities, while reporting requirements for a book-entry direct holding system were imposed by statute.
Securities holding systems based on transaction statements of the sort contemplated by the 1978 amendments have not yet evolved to any major extent-indeed, the statutory specification of the details of the information system may itself have acted as an impediment to the evolution of a book-entry direct system. Accordingly, Revised Article 8 drops the statutory requirements concerning transaction statements. The record keeping and reporting obligations of issuers of uncertificated securities would be left to agreement and other law, as is the case today for securities intermediaries.
In the 1978 version, the Part 2 rules concerning transfer restrictions, issuers' defenses, and the like were based on the assumption that transaction statements would be used in a fashion analogous to traditional security certificates. For example, Sections 8-202 and 8-204 specified that the terms of a security, or any restrictions on transfer imposed by the issuer, had to be noted on the transaction statement. Revised Article 8 deletes all such references to transaction statements. The terms of securities, or of restrictions of transfer, would be governed by whatever law or agreement specifies these matters, just as is the case for various other forms of business entities, such as partnerships, that have never issued certificates representing interests. Other Part 2 rules, such as Sections 8-205, 8-206, and 8-208, attempted to state rules on forgery and related matters for transactions statements. Since Revised Article 8 does not specify the format for information systems for uncertificated securities, there is no point in attempting to state rules on the consequences of wrongful information transmission in the particular format of written statements authenticated by signatures.
5. Deletion of provisions on registered pledges.
The 1978 version of Article 8 also added detailed provisions concerning "registered pledges" of uncertificated securities. Revised Article 8 adopts a new system of rules for security interests in securities, for both the direct and indirect holding systems that make it unnecessary to have special statutory provisions for registered pledges of uncertificated securities.
The reason that the 1978 version of Article 8 created this concept was that if the only means of creating security interests was the pledge, it seemed necessary to provide some substitute for the pledge in the absence of a certificate. The point of the registered pledge was, presumably, that it permitted a debtor to grant a perfected security interest in securities, yet still keep the securities in the debtor's own name for purposes of dividends, voting, and the like. The concept of registered pledge has, however, been thought troublesome by many legal commentators and securities industry participants. For example, in Massachusetts where many mutual funds have their headquarters, a non-uniform amendment was enacted to permit the issuer of an uncertificated security to refuse to register a pledge and instead issue a certificate to the owner that the owner could then pledge by ordinary means.
Under the 1978 version of Article 8, if an issuer chose to issue securities in uncertificated form, it was also required by statute to offer a registered pledge program. Revised Articles 8 and 9 take a different approach. All of the provisions dealing with registered pledges have been deleted. This does not mean, however, that issuers cannot offer such a service. The control rules of Revised Section 8-106 and the related priority provisions in Article 9 establish a structure that permits issuers to develop systems akin to the registered pledge device, without mandating that they do so, or legislating the details of the system. In essence, the registered pledge or control device amounts to a record keeping service. A debtor can always transfer securities to its lender. In a registered pledge or control agreement arrangement, the issuer keeps track of which securities the secured party holds for its own account outright, and which securities it holds in pledge from its debtors.
Under the rules of Revised Articles 8 and 9, the registered pledge issue can easily be left to resolution by the market. The concept of control is defined in such fashion that if an issuer or securities intermediary wishes to offer a service akin to the registered pledge device it can do so. The issuer or securities intermediary would offer to enter into agreements with the debtor and secured party under which it would hold the securities for the account of the debtor, but subject to instructions from the secured party. The secured party would thereby obtain control assuring perfection and priority of its lien.
Even if such arrangements are not offered by issuers, persons who hold uncertificated securities will have several options for using them as collateral for secured loans. Under the new rules, filing is a permissible method of perfection, for debtors other than securities firms. A secured party who relies on filing is, of course, exposed to the risk that the debtor will double finance and grant a later secured lender a security interest under circumstances that give that lender control and hence priority. If the lender is unwilling to run that risk, the debtor can transfer the securities outright to the lender on the books of the issuer, though between the parties the debtor would be the owner and the lender only a secured party. That, of course, requires that the debtor trust the secured party not to dispose of the collateral wrongfully, and the debtor may also need to make arrangements with the secured party to exercise benefits of ownership such as voting and receiving distributions.
It may well be that both lenders and borrowers would prefer to have some arrangement, such as the registered pledge device of current law, that permits the debtor to remain as the registered owner entitled to vote and receive dividends but gives the lender exclusive power to order their disposition. The approach taken in this revision is that if there is a genuine demand for such arrangements, it can be met by the market. The difficulty with the approach of present Article 8 is that it mandates that any issuer that wishes to issue securities in uncertificated form must also offer this record keeping service. That obligation may well have acted as a disincentive to the development of uncertificated securities. Thus, the deletion of the mandated registered pledge provisions is consistent with the principle of neutrality toward the evolution of securities holding practices.
6. Former Section 8-403-Issuer's Duty as to Adverse Claims.
Section 8-403 of the prior version of Article 8 dealt with the obligations of issuers to adverse claimants. The starting point of American law on issuers' liability in such circumstances is the old case of Lowry v. Commercial & Farmers' Bank, 15 F.Cas. 1040 (C.C.D.Md.1848) (No. 8551), under which issuers could be held liable for registering a transfer at the direction of a registered owner who was acting wrongfully as against a third person in making the transfer. The Lowry principle imposed onerous liability on issuers, particularly in the case of transfers by fiduciaries, such as executors and trustees. To protect against risk of such liability, issuers developed the practice of requiring extensive documentation for fiduciary stock transfers to assure themselves that the fiduciaries were acting rightfully. As a result, fiduciary stock transfers were cumbersome and time consuming.
In the present century, American law has gradually moved away from the Lowry principle. Statutes such as the Uniform Fiduciaries Act, the Model Fiduciary Stock Transfer Act, and the Uniform Act for the Simplification of Fiduciary Security Transfers sought to avoid the delays in stock transfers that could result from issuers' demands for documentation by limiting the issuer's responsibility for transfers in breach of the registered owner's duty to others. Although these statutes provided that issuers had no duty of inquiry to determine whether a fiduciary was acting rightfully, they all provided that an issuer could be liable if the issuer acted with notice of third party claims.
The prior version of Article 8 followed the same approach as the various fiduciary transfer statutes. Issuers were not required to seek out information from which they could determine whether a fiduciary was acting properly, but they were liable if they registered a transfer with notice that the fiduciary was acting improperly. Former Section 8-308(11) said that the failure of a fiduciary to comply with a controlling instrument or failure to obtain a court approval required under local law did not render the indorsement or instruction unauthorized. However, if a fiduciary was in fact acting improperly, then the beneficiary would be treated as an adverse claimant. See Section 8-302(2) (1978) and Comment 4. Former Section 8-403 specified that if written notice of an adverse claim had been sent to the issuer, the issuer "shall inquire into the adverse claim" before registering a transfer on the indorsement or instruction of the registered owner. The issuer could "discharge any duty of inquiry by any reasonable means," including by notifying the adverse claimant that the transfer would be registered unless the adverse claimant obtained a court order or gave an indemnity bond.
Revised Article 8 rejects the Lowry principle altogether. It provides that an issuer is not liable for wrongful registration if it acts on an effective indorsement or instruction, even though the issuer may have notice of adverse claims, so long as the issuer has not been served with legal process and is not acting in collusion with the wrongdoer in registering the transfer. See Revised Section 8-404 and Comments thereto. The provisions of prior Section 8-403 specifying that issuers had a duty to investigate adverse claims of which they had notice are deleted.
Revised Article 8 also deletes the provisions set out in Section 8-403(3) of prior law specifying that issuers did not have a duty to inquire into the rightfulness of transfers by fiduciaries. The omission of the rules formerly in Section 8-403(3) does not, of course, mean that issuers would be liable for acting on the instruction of fiduciaries in the circumstances covered by former Section 8-403(3). Former Section 8-403(3) assumed that issuers would be liable if they registered a transfer with notice of an adverse claim. Former Section 8-403(3) was necessary only to negate any inference that knowledge that a transfer was initiated by a fiduciary might give constructive notice of adverse claims. Under Section 8-404 of Revised Article 8, mere notice of adverse claims does not impose duties on the issuer. Accordingly the provisions included in former Section 8-403(3) are unnecessary.
Although the prior version of Article 8 included provisions similar or identical to those set out in the Uniform Act for the Simplification of Fiduciary Security Transfers and similar statutes, most states retained these statutes at the time the Uniform Commercial Code was adopted. These statutes are based on a premise different from Revised Article 8. The fiduciary simplification acts are predicated on the assumption that an issuer would be liable to an adverse claimant if the issuer had notice. These statutes seek only to preclude any inference that issuers have such notice when they register transfers on the instructions of a fiduciary. Revised Article 8 is based on the view that a third party should not be able to interfere with the relationship between an issuer and its registered shareholders unless the claimant obtains legal process. Since notice of an adverse claim does not impose duties on an issuer under Revised Article 8, the Uniform Act for the Simplification of Fiduciary Security Transfers, or similar statutes, should be repealed upon enactment of Revised Article 8.
7. Former Section 8-319-Statute of Frauds.
Revised Article 8 deletes the special statute of frauds provision for securities contracts that was set out in former Section 8-319. See Revised Section 8-113. Most of the litigation involving the statute of frauds rule of the prior version of Article 8 involved informal transactions, rather than transactions on the organized securities markets. Typical cases were those in which an employee or former employee of a small enterprise sued to enforce an alleged promise that he or she would receive an equity interest in the business. The usual commercial policies relating to writings in contracts for the sale of personal property are at most tangentially implicated in such cases. There was a rather large and complex body of case law dealing with the applicability of Section 8-319 to cases of this sort. It seems doubtful that the cost of litigating these issues was warranted by whatever protections the statute of frauds offered against fraudulent claims.
Subsection (c) of former Section 8-319 provided that the statute of frauds bar did not apply if a written confirmation was sent and the recipient did not seasonably send an objection. That provision, however, presumably would not have had the effect of binding a broker's customer to the terms of a trade for which confirmation had been sent though the customer had not objected within 10 days. In the first place, the relationship between a broker and customer is ordinarily that of agent and principal; thus the broker is not seeking to enforce a contract for sale of a security, but to bind its principal for action taken by the broker as agent. Former Section 8-319 did not by its terms apply to the agency relationship. Moreover, even if former Section 8-319(c) applied, it is doubtful that it, of its own force, had the effect of precluding the customer from disputing whether there was a contract or what the terms of the contract were. Former Section 8-319(c) only removed the statute of frauds as a bar to enforcement; it did not say that there was a contract or that the confirmation had the effect of excluding other evidence of its terms. Thus, deletion of former Section 8-319 does not change the law one way or the other on whether a customer who fails to object to a written confirmation is precluded from denying the trade described in the confirmation, because that issue was never governed by former Section 8-319(c).
8. Miscellaneous.
Prior Section 8-105. Revised Article 8 deletes the statement found in Section 8-105(1) of the prior version that certificated securities "are negotiable instruments." This provision was added very late in the drafting process of the original Uniform Commercial Code. Apparently the thought was that it might be useful in dealing with potential transition problems arising out of the fact that bonds were then treated as negotiable instruments under the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law. During that era, many other statutes, such as those specifying permissible categories of investments for regulated entities, might have used such phrases as "negotiable securities" or "negotiable instruments." Section 8-105 seems to have been included in the original version of Article 8 to avoid unfortunate interpretations of those other statutes once securities were moved from the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law to UCC Article 8. Whether or not Section 8-105 was necessary at that time, it has surely outlived its purpose. The statement that securities "are negotiable instruments" is very confusing. As used in the Uniform Commercial Code, the term "negotiable instrument" means an instrument that is governed by Article 3; yet Article 8 securities are not governed by Article 3. Courts have occasionally cited Section 8-105(1) of prior law for the proposition that the rules that are generally thought of as characteristic of negotiability, such as the rule that bona fide purchasers take free from adverse claims, apply to certificated securities. Section 8-105(1), however, is unnecessary for that purpose, since the relevant rules are set out in specific provisions of Article 8.
Prior Sections 8-107 and 8-314. Article 8 has never been, and should not be, a comprehensive codification of the law of contracts for the purchase and sale of securities. The prior version of Article 8 did contain, however, a number of provisions dealing with miscellaneous aspects of the law of contracts as applied to contracts for the sale of securities. Section 8-107 dealt with one remedy for breach, and Section 8-314 dealt with certain aspects of performance. Revised Article 8 deletes these on the theory that inclusion of a few sections on issues of contract law is likely to cause more harm than good since inferences might be drawn from the failure to cover related issues. The deletion of these sections is not, however, intended as a rejection of the rules of contract law and interpretation that they expressed.
Prior Section 8-315. It is not entirely clear what the function of Section 8-315 of prior law was. The section specified that the owner of a security could recover it from a person to whom it had been transferred, if the transferee did not qualify as a bona fide purchaser. It seems to have been intended only to recognize that securities, like any other form of personal property, are governed by the general principle of property law that an owner can recover property from a person to whom it has been transferred under circumstances that did not cut off the owner's claim. Although many other Articles of the UCC deal with cut-off rules, Article 8 was the only one that included an affirmative statement of the rights of an owner to recover her property. It seems wiser to adopt the same approach as in Articles 2, 3, 7, and 9, and leave this point to other law. Accordingly, Section 8-315 is deleted in Revised Article 8, without, of course, implying rejection of the nearly self-evident rule that it sought to express.
Prior Section 8-407. This section, entitled "Exchangeability of Securities," seemed to say that holders of securities had the right to cause issuers to convert them back and forth from certificated to uncertificated form. The provision, however, applied only if the issuer "regularly maintains a system for issuing the class of securities involved under which both certificated and uncertificated securities are regularly issued to the category of owners, which includes the person in whose name the new security is to be registered." The provision seems unnecessary, since it applied only if the issuer decided that it should. The matter can be covered by agreement or corporate charter or by-laws.
Revisor's Note:
In the 1996 session of the legislature all sections in effect at such time were repealed and the numbers reassigned to the new sections of the revised article. For the text and materials relating to the prior law, see the appropriate section in volume 7 of the K.S.A., copyright 1983, and the 1995 supplement to such volume.
Cross References to Related Sections:Transfer of stock under banking code, see 9-903.
Part 1.—SHORT TITLE AND GENERAL MATTERS
84-8-101 Short title.Part 2.—ISSUE AND ISSUER
84-8-201 Issuer.Part 3.—TRANSFER OF CERTIFICATED AND UNCERTIFICATED SECURITIES
84-8-301 Delivery.Part 4.—REGISTRATION
84-8-401 Duty of issuer to register transfer.Part 5.—SECURITY ENTITLEMENTS
84-8-501 Securities account; acquisition of security entitlement from securities intermediary.Part 6.—TRANSITION PROVISIONS
84-8-601 Savings clause.Article 9 was revised in the 2000 session of the Kansas legislature as recommended in 1998 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and all sections of the article in effect at such time were repealed and the numbers reassigned to the new sections of the revised article by Senate Bill No. 366 (L. 2000, ch. 142).
Law Review and Bar Journal References:Scope and effect of article discussed in detail, J. Eugene Balloun, 5 W.L.J. 192 to 217 (1966).
Detailed discussion of provisions hereunder in 1963-65 survey of secured transactions, J. Eugene Balloun, 14 K.L.R. 359-364 (1965).
Commentary on certain sections of this article in discussion of chattel security under the UCC, David Dewey, 34 J.B.A.K. 189, 192, 238 (1965).
"Executory Contracts and Bankruptcy: The Case for a Federal Common Law," Richard F. Broude, 17 K.L.R. 1, 16, 17 (1968).
"Default, The Consumer's Dilema," Harry J. Winkler, 20 K.L.R. 139 (1970).
"Recent Developments Under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code," Dean Roy L. Steinheimer, Jr., 41 J.B.A.K. 135 (1972).
"Commercial Transactions Under the New Bankruptcy Act," Paul B. Rasor, 48 J.K.B.A. 199 (1979).
"Researching Legislative Intent," Fritz Snyder, 51 J.K.B.A. 93, 97 (1982).
"Survey of Kansas Law: Secured Transactions," J. Eugene Balloun, 32 K.L.R. 351, 354, 358, 360 (1984).
"Agricultural Credit and The Uniform Commercial Code: A Need for Change?" Keith G. Meyer, 34 K.L.R. 469, 470 (1986).
"Kansas Artisan's and Mechanic's Liens: An Unnecessary Tangle," Judge John K. Pearson, 63 J.K.B.A. No. 7, 28, 29 (1994).
"Resowing the Mischievous Seeds of the Fifth Circuit: In re Thriftway Auto Supply's Impact on Trade Name Filings," Lisa A. Epps, 6 Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y No. 1, 183 (1996).
"An Article 9 Primer Regarding Uninsured Collateral Destroyed by a Tortfeasor," Amanda K. Esquibel, 46 K.L.R. 211 (1998).
"Y2K: An Active Year for Judicial Legislation," Paul T. Davis, 69 J.K.B.A. No. 7, 12 (2000).
CASE ANNOTATIONS1. Sale of collateral by secured creditor in other than commercially reasonable manner; deficiency judgment not barred as matter of law. Westgate State Bank v. Clark, 231 Kan. 81, 642 P.2d 961 (1982).
2. Priority between right of setoff and perfected security interest governed by Article 9. Bank of Kansas v. Hutchinson Health Services, Inc., 13 Kan. App. 2d 421, 423, 773 P.2d 660 (1989).
Part 1.—GENERAL PROVISIONS
Subpart 1.—SHORT TITLE, DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL CONCEPTS
84-9-101 Short title.Subpart 2.—APPLICABILITY OF ARTICLE
84-9-109 Scope.Part 2.—EFFECTIVENESS OF SECURITY AGREEMENT; ATTACHMENT OF SECURITY INTEREST; RIGHTS OF PARTIES TO SECURITY AGREEMENT
Subpart 1.—EFFECTIVENESS AND ATTACHMENT
84-9-201 General effectiveness of security agreement.Subpart 2.—RIGHTS AND DUTIES
84-9-207 Rights and duties of secured party having possession or control of collateral.Part 3.—PERFECTION AND PRIORITY
Subpart 1.—LAW GOVERNING PERFECTION AND PRIORITY
84-9-301 Law governing perfection of priority of security interests.Subpart 2.—PERFECTION
84-9-308 When security interest or agricultural lien is perfected; continuity of perfection.Subpart 3.—PRIORITY
84-9-317 Interests that take priority over or take free of security interest or agricultural lien.Subpart 4.—RIGHTS OF BANK
84-9-340 Effectiveness of right of recoupment or set-off against deposit account.Part 4.—RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES
84-9-401 Alienability of debtor's rights.Part 5.—FILING
Subpart 1.—FILING OFFICE; CONTENTS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF FINANCING STATEMENT
84-9-501 Filing office.Subpart 2.—DUTIES AND OPERATION OF FILING OFFICE
84-9-519 Numbering, maintaining, and indexing records; communicating information provided in records.Part 6.—DEFAULT
Subpart 1.—DEFAULT AND ENFORCEMENT OF SECURITY INTEREST
84-9-601 Rights after default; judicial enforcement; consignor or buyer of accounts, chattel paper, payment intangibles or promissory notes.Subpart 2.—NONCOMPLIANCE WITH ARTICLE
84-9-625 Judicial remedies for secured party noncompliance; damages.Part 7.—TRANSITION
84-9-701 Reserved.Part 8.—TRANSITION PROVISIONS FOR 2010 UCC AMENDMENTS
84-9-801 Specifying sections that are part of article 9 of the uniform act.|
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