Template:Charges in ireland
Registering charges of securities and cash in Ireland
You are having commercial relations with an Irish espievie. You want it to grant you security. Do you need to register your charge?
Your starting point would be well, since Ireland is still a member of the EU, and an enthusiastic one at that, and as such is obliged to implement the Financial Collateral Directive into domestic law. Since that happy statute has done away with the tiresome yet strangely exhilarating business of having to register charges with the domestic agency responsible for monitoring those things things in your member state, the answer, on a commonsense application of principles of European Law, ought to be “no”.
And, indeed the Irish Financial Collateral Arrangement Regulations, as incorporated into the Irish Companies Act 2014 provide that certain types of charges do not actually count as “charges” for the purposes of Section 408(1) of the Irish Companies Act 2014 and therefore do not need to be registered under Section 409.
These include mortgages and charges created over an interest in:
- (a) cash;[1]
- (b) deposits and money credited to bank account;
- (c) shares, bonds or debt instruments;
- (d) money market funds or collective investment scheme units; or
- (e) claims and rights (such as dividends or interest) over any of the above.
But.
That isn't necessarily how the Central Bank of Ireland sees it. Matheson warns[2] that the registrar tends to take a conservative approach to excluding charges from the registration requirement on account of the Financial Collateral Arrangement Regulations, so you may still find counsel for Irish espievies insisting on the pantomime of registering charges with the CBI, notwithstanding the Emerald Isle’s continued membership of the European Union, and implementation of its buzz-killing Financial Collateral Directive, thanks to some law changes in 2015.[3]
- ↑ I know, I know. You can’t take security over cash. But if you try, then even if you could, you couldn’t, unless you registered your attempt. But since you can’t ... I’ll get my coat.
- ↑ “The Companies Act 2014: Registration and Priority of Charges”
- ↑ “... Charges over all categories of assets are now registerable save for certain specific exclusions (including, for example, a charge created over an interest in cash or in shares in an Irish company). Thus, particulars of every charge created by a company over any property need to be delivered to the CRO, save for charges over non-registerable assets.” — Irish Law Society bulletin.