Selling restrictions

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On of the more pointless wastes of trees in the realm of securities marketing, selling restrictions to a bond lawyer are almost as ineffable but tedious (ineffability and tedium being, of course related concepts) and infused with a sombre, ambulatory horror as netting opinions are to a derivatives lawyer. There is no end of bother one can theoretically get into should one offer for sale in a place you are not to meant to, a commercial security.

This is all deep lore, reflecting two facts: one, that one can “offer for sale” in a way that can get you deep in the schtook, a security without actually erecting a billboard and or advertising on the side of a bus; more psychologically fragile securities lawyers have been known to seek safe spaces at the mere casual mention of a tradable financial instrument; and two, there was once a time, many, mean years ago, where Belgian dentists. tax dodgers and other undesirable types could buy and sell securities literally out of the boot of the Citroen from which they had just collected them from the Luxembourg issue and paying agent, and thus the practical controls on whom one could offer, or even sell, securities to were very limited.

These days they are not: everything trades electronically, all is security controlled, hand-shaken, checked for money-laundering. two-factor authenticated and encrypted, so that no-one has any excuse for knowing, or not knowing (or for that matter stopping) who they trade a given security with.