ABSTRACT

Introduction In the Ireland of yesteryear there was a song much in vogue about being on the one road – the road to God knows where. The same might or might not be said about the European Union after the failure of the Constitution project. Part of the reason for the failure may be continental concerns about the intentions of the Anglo-Saxons. In the Anglo-Saxon lands they do things differently. They speak a different language and with a different accent. But it would be unwise to assume too much. The AngloSaxon lands are not all alike. There are superficial similarities but, as regards each other, there is a wealth of differences. Personal property security law is a case in point. For over 30 years successive official bodies and government reports have endorsed the idea of reforming the English law of personal property security along the lines of Article 9 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) which was first adopted in the 1950s and whose influence has since spread to the common law provinces of Canada, New Zealand and it appears to Australia.1 Practitioners have generally been at best, indifferent, and at worst, outrightly hostile to the idea. Their general stance is best encapsulated in the maxim that the present law, while it may do with the occasional incremental adjustment, works well and if it is not broke, there is no need to fix it. The Law Commission started on the project of comprehensive personal property security law reform in 2001 following a reference from the Company Law Review Steering Group.2 The way forward then seemed clear. There was a strong steer from the Company Law Review suggesting that legislation based on Article 9 of the UCC was the appropriate path to follow. The Law Commission endorsed this approach in the Consultation Paper Registration of Security Interests ( July 2002)3 and the basic approach was confirmed and extended in the Consultative

1 See generally the chapters by Brown and Fisher in this volume, pp. 328-65 and pp. 366-86. Note also: P. Ali The Law of Secured Finance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, OUP, 2002); G. McCormack Secured Credit under English and American Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). It should be noted that Australia is also actively considering similar reforms. For up-to-date information on the reform process in Australia. see www.ag.gov. au/pps.