Template:M summ 1995 CSA 7
Clearing system liens
A little bit of “well, it really ought to go without saying but, hell, you are derivatives lawyers, so we know that’s not how you roll” drafting.
In these modern, dematerialised times, the securities in a clearing system — that is, pretty much all securities — exist only as entries in a ledger maintained by the clearing system. The individual securities are not security-printed, physical things. [1]
In any case, like all good intermediaries, the clearing system gets fees from participants for being a clearing system. To guard against non-payment of these fees, it keeps a lien on all global securities it holds.
Now all this sits a long way down the stack of turtles that makes up the modern metaphysical financial system — almost so deep as to be beyond the paranoid articulations of an ISDA ninja — but, as you can see, not quite.
- ↑ See common depositary for more information.