Formalism, Functionalism,
and Understanding the Law
of Secured Transactions
Michael G. Bridge, Roderick A. Macdonald,
Ralph L. Simmonds and Catherine Walsh,
A central issue in the law of security over movable
property is the recognition of, and the regulatory implica-
tions of recognizing, a secured transaction. Systems of law
derived from Article 9 of the United States Uniform Com-
mercial Code take as their point of departure what at first
sight is a unitary conception of such a transaction, which is
described in terms of the “intention” underlying it, or its
“substance”. In the view of the authors, such a conception
cannot be sustained except as a way of asking the question
of whether a transaction is appropriately viewed as a se-
cured one for the purposes of the legal issue at hand. In-
deed, the problems encountered in attempting to apply a
purely functional analysis to title-based transactions such as
conditional sale, bailment, and trust-and to legal issues
arising outside of, if closely connected to, the ones which
Article 9 systems address-show that concepts which focus
on the distinction between what is owned and what is owed
may be unavoidable in the law.
The heuristic nature of functional analysis enables
one to see that other systems of law without such a unitary
conception of “security” as that identified with Article 9
may reach appropriate legal results at least as efficiently
and fairly as Article 9 systems, and may do so with less risk
of eliminating the non-security aspects of the transaction.
La reconnaissance d’une transaction garantie et les
consdquences rglementaires d’une relie reconnaissance
posent un probl~me central en droit des sOret~s mobili~res.
Les syst~mes de droit dtiv~s de l’Article 9 du Uniform
Commercial Code americain ont, comme point de d~part,
une notion de transaction qui paralt 8tre, h premiere vue,
unitaire. Celle-ci se dlcrit selon cl’intentiono qui la fonde
ou selon sa vsubstance . D’apr.s les auteurs, one telle no-
tion ne peut atre soutenue que pour se demander si une
transaction est adtluatement per~ue comme garantie dans
le contexte d’un probl~me juridique donn6. En effet, les
difficult6s rencontres en tentant d’appliquer une analyse
purement fonctionnelle aux transactions d’attribution ou de
rnserve du droit de propriet, mais aussi aux probl6mes ju-
ridiques survenant independamment des probl~mes ressor-
tant des syst~mes de l’Article 9, montrent que les concepts
qui se concentrent sur la distinction entre ce qui constitue
une proprit6 et ce qui constitue une dette pourrait atre
ineluctable en droit.
Le but d’illstrer la pertinence de l’analyse fonction-
nelle est de montrer que d’autres systames de droit qui
n’adoptent pas une conception unitaire de
qu’identifite dans l’Article 9, pauvent toutefois atteindre
des rtsultats juridiques de fagon aussi efficace et juste que
les syst~mes de l’Article 9, tout en diminuant le risque de
diluer las autres aspects de la transaction.
. Michael G. Bridge, Department of Law, University of Nottingham; Roderick A. Macdonald, Fac-
ulty of Law, McGill University; Ralph L. Simmonds, School of Law, Murdoch University; Catherine
Walsh, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick. This article emerged as a result of the initiative
-of the Dean of the Faculty of Law of McGill University, Professor Stephen Toope, who asked us to
conduct a roundtable discussion on secured transactions law reform. That discussion became
“Roundtable: Title Transactions as Security Devices in civil and common law: Formalism’s Revenge
or Simplistic Functionalism?” (McGill University, Faculty of Law, 18 October 1995) [unpublished].
Further stimulation came from our presence (except that of Roderick A. Macdonald) at the Fifteenth
Annual Workshop on Commercial and Consumer Law which took place at the Faculty of Law of the
University of Toronto on October 20 & 21, 1995, and from the subsequent exchanges we have con-
tinued to have across the continents.
McGill Law Journal 1999
Revue de droit de McGill 1999
To be cited as: (1999) 44 McGill L.J. 567
Mode de r6f6rence: (1999) 44 R.D. McGill 567
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DEDROITDE MCGILL
[Vol. 44
Introduction: Substance, Function, and Form in Secured Transactions
Law
I. Form over Function in the Characterization of Security Interests
A. Sale and Security: Accounts and Chattel Paper Financing
B. The Unpaid Seller’s Reservation of Title and Security
C. Leases and Security
D, Consignments and Security
E. Simple Bailments and Security
F Security and Trust
G. The Analysis So Far: The Utility of Formalism
H. The Limits of Formalism
II. Personal Property Security or Personal Property Securities?
A. From Property Rights to Priority Rules
B.
Implications of the Unitary Concept of Security Beyond the PPSAs:
Royal Bank of Canada v. Sparrow Electric Corp.
C, Conclusions
Ill. Understanding English Resistance to the Call of Article 9
Introduction
A.
B. The Importance of Title
C, Artificiality
D, Registration
E. Conclusion on English Law
IV. Exporting Article 9 and PPSA Models to Other Jurisdictions: The
Case of Quebec
A.
Introduction: The Background to Reform of Quebec’s Law of Secured
Transactions
B. Civil Law Conceptions of Property Contract, and Security
C. Civil Law Conceptions of Title Security Devices and Their Regulation
D. Policy Perspectives on the Regulation of Title Security in the Civil Law
E. Quebec’s New Civil Code on Secured Transactions
F Conclusion on Quebec Law
Conclusion
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
Introduction: Substance, Function, and Form
Transactions Law
in Secured
Article 9 on secured transactions is widely regarded as the most innovative and
successful of the Articles that make up the United States Uniforn Commercial Code
(“U.C.C.”).’ Nearing the half century mark of its promulgation, it is still seen by its
sponsors as “fundamentally and conceptually sound,’3 a view reportedly shared by
practising commercial lawyers.’
Article 9 has been adopted by all fifty states of the United States,’ and its influ-
ence has been equally remarkable in common law Canada where various incarnations
of the Personal Property Security Act (“PPSA”) adapted from the Article 9 model are
in operation in all but one of the common law jurisdictions.6 Further afield, countries
‘ See e.g. C. Felsenfeld, “But the Proposed Uniform (?) Commercial Code was Adopted” (1993) 26
Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 597 who states that Article 9 is a “legislative triumph” (ibid. at 598), a “beautiful
exercise” which created a “logical and flowing treatment’ of security interests (ibid. at 605-606).
2 Grant Gilmore, one of the principal architects of U.C.C. Article 9, regards 1950 as the U.C.C.’s
intellectual birth date. See G. Gilmore, Security Interests in Personal Property, vol. I (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1965) at 288-89 [hereinafter Security Interests]. Although the 1962 Official Text was the first
version of the U.C.C. which was enacted nationally, earlier versions had been enacted by several
states, including Pennsylvania, in 1953. An amended version of Article 9 was promulgated as the
1972 Official Text.
At the time of finalising this text, there were proposals to revise parts of Article 9 pending before
the American Law Institute. This article does not take these revisions into account since none of them
is seen to affect the points made herein.
3 Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code et al., Uniform Commercial Code
Article 9: Report (Philadelphia: American Law Institute and the National Conference of Commis-
sioners on Uniform State Laws, 1992) [hereinafter 1992 Report]. See also S.L. Harris & C.W.
Mooney, “The Article 9 Study Committee Report: Strong Signals and Hard Choices” (1993) 29 Idaho
L. Rev. 561 at 569: “Article 9 generally has provided a sound set of rules governing attachment, per-
fection, priority and enforcement of security interests in personal property.” While the 1992 Report
recommends some significant revisions, none of these revisions change Article 9’s basic structure or
themes.
4 See e.g. H. Ruda, “Article 9 Works-How Come?” (1994) 28 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 309 at 309: “More
than thirty years of personal experience with the application of Article 9 to commercial transactions
leads me to concur in [the view that Article 9 is fundamentally sound]”
‘ The civil law state of Louisiana was the last state to enact Article 9:3 U.L.A. 1-201 (1992).
6 In order of implementation, the nine provinces (and one territory) are: Ontario (R.S.O. 1990, c. P-
10); Manitoba (R.S.M. 1987, c. P-35, to be replaced by S.M. 1993, c. 14, which is not yet in force);
Saskatchewan (S.S. 1993, c. P-6.2); Yukon Territory (R.S.Y. 1986, c. 130); Alberta (S.A. 1988, c. P-
4.05); British Columbia (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 359); New Brunswick (S.N.B. 1993, c. P-7.1); Nova Sco-
tia (S.N.S. 1995-96, c. 13); Prince Edward Island (S.P.E.I. 1997, c. 33); and Newfoundland (S.N.
1998, c. P-7.1, which was not in force as of 12 February 1999). Law reform officials in Newfound-
land have delayed the implementation of PPSA reform until after they implement radical improve-
ments to the province’s general judgment and debt enforcement laws, a reform sequence that some
would regard as more logical and fair: see E. Warren, “Further Reconsideration” (1994) 80 Va. L.
Rev. 2303 at 2308:
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROITDE MCGILL
[Vol. 44
as varied as New Zealand, Gaza, and the West Bank have signalled their commitment
to follow the United States and Canadian examples.! Moreover, the Article 9 model is
proving to be influential in the drafting of international conventions on security on
movables.8
In our analysis of Article 9, … we seem to take as the starting point the creditor’s right
to collect under Article 9, without asking much about whether the dismal collection
prospects under state collection law create such a gap between the abilities of secured
and unsecured creditors to collect that other undesirable consequences arise.
For further information on the Ontario PPSA, see generally J.S. Ziegel & D.L. Denomme, The
Ontario Personal Property Security Act: Commentary and Analysis (Toronto: Canada Law Book,
1994). For further information on the new western PPSAs, see generally R.C.C. Cuming & R.J.
Wood, Alberta Personal Property Security Act Handbook, 2d ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 1993) [herein-
after Alberta PPSA Handbook]; R.C.C. Cuming & R.J. Wood, British Columbia Personal Property
Security Act Handbook, 3d ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 1996); and R.C.C. Cuming & R.J. Wood, Sas-
katchewan and Manitoba Personal Property Security Acts Handbook (Toronto: Carswell, 1994). For
further information on the 1995 New Brunswick PPSA, see generally C. Walsh, An Introduction to
the New Brunswick Personal Property Security Act (Frederiction, N.B.: University of New Brunswick
Faculty of Law and New Brunswick Geographic Information Corporation, 1995) [hereinafter An In-
troduction].
‘ In New Zealand, see New Zealand Law Commission, Report No. 8: A Personal Property Securi-
ties Act for New Zealand (Wellington: New Zealand Law Commission, 1989). See also M. Gedye,
“The Long Road to Personal Property Security Law Reform in New Zealand” (Commercial Law
Conference, Australian National University in Canberra, 24 April 1998) [unpublished, archived with
the authors]; and Legal Research Foundation and New Zealand Ministry of Commerce, Symposium
on Aspects of the Proposed Personal Property Security Act (18 August 1998) [unpublished, archived
with the authors]. Pending in New Zealand (as of July 31, 1999) is proposed legislation (the Personal
Property Security Bill 1998) which is based on the western Canadian PPSAs and which is expected to
become law and be in force by January 1, 2000. For Gaza and the West Bank, see R.C.C. Cuming,
“Modernizing the Secured Financing and Leasing Laws of Developing Nations, with Particular Focus
on the West Bank and Gaza” in J.S. Ziegel & S. Lerner, eds., New Developments in International
Commercial and Consumer Law (Oxford: Hart, 1998) 183.
B On the proposed UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Interna-
tional Convention on Security Interests in Mobile Equipment (e.g. aircraft, rolling stock and other
high-cost equipment of a kind regularly used across national borders), see generally R.C.C. Cuming,
“Recognition of Security Interest in Mobile Equipment: An International Approach” in R. Cranston
& R.M. Goode, eds., Conmnercial and Consumer Law: National and International Dimensions (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1993) 82; C.W. Mooney, “Exporting UCC Article 9 to an International Con-
vention: The Local Law Conundrum” (1996) 27 Can. Bus. L.J. 278; R.M. Goode, ‘Transcending the
Boundaries of Earth and Space: The Preliminary Draft Unidroit Convention on International Interests
in Mobile Equipment”
[unpublished, archived with the authors]; J. Stoufflet, “The
UNCITRAL Draft Convention on Receivables Financing” (9th Biennial Conference of the Interna-
tional Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law, Bond University, Australia, 8-10 August 1998)
[unpublished, archived with the authors]; and C. Walsh, “The Draft UNCITRAL Convention on As-
signment in Receivables Financing: The Current State of Play from a Canadian Perspective” (28th
Annual Workshop on Commercial and Consumer Law, University of Toronto, 17 October 1998) [un-
published, archived with the authors]. On the draft UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission for In-
ternational Trade) Convention on International Receivables Financing, see P Winship, “Modernizing
Transnational Receivables Financing” (8th Biennial Meeting of the International Academy of Coin-
(1998)
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
Article 9’s appeal is not, however, universal. Within Canada, after sustained de-
bate, the civil law province of Quebec ultimately declined to adopt the Article 9
model in its new Civil Code Furthermore, while English and Australian law reform-
ers have expressed varying degrees of support for the Article 9 model, their recom-
mendations have not been taken up by the legislators.” Even in the United States, the
basic jurisprudential and economic premises underpinning Article 9 remain the sub-
ject of ongoing scholarly debate.”
mercial & Consumer Law, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, August 1996). Although “set aside” proposals
of this kind have generally been inspired by concerns with distributional fairness, at least some law
and economics scholars have begun to question the efficiency of awarding full priority to secured
creditors upon insolvency: see L.A. Bebchuck & J.M. Fried, “The Uneasy Case for the Priority of Se-
cured Claims in Bankruptcy” (1996) 105 Yale L.J. 857 [hereinafter “Priority of Secured Claims”];
and L.A. Bebchuk & J.M. Fried, “The Uneasy Case for the Priority of Secured Claims in Bankruptcy:
Further Thoughts and a Reply to Critics” (1997) 82 Cornell L. Rev. 1279 [hereinafter “Reply to
Critics”].
‘Book 6 of the Civil Code of Quebec implemented significant reforms to Quebec’s law of security
on movables about which more is said later in this article. On the decision not to embrace the Article
9 model, see M. Boodman & R.A. Macdonald, “How Far is Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial
Code Exportable? A Return to Sources?” (1996) 27 Can. Bus. L.J. 249; and R.A. Macdonald, “Mod-
ernization of Personal Property Security Law: A Quebec Perspective” (1985) 10 Can. Bus. L.J. 182
[hereinafter “A Quebec Perspective”].
“o In England, see M.G. Bridge, “How Far is Article 9 Exportable? The English Experience” (1996)
27 Can. Bus. L.J. 196 [hereinafter “English Experience”]. In Australia, see R.L. Simmonds, “Some
Notes on the Reform of Personal Property Security Law in Australia” in M. Gillooly, ed., Securities
Over Personalty (Sydney: Federation Press, 1994) 192; A. Duggan, “Personal Property Security Law
Reform: The Australian Experience to Date” (1996) 27 Can. Bus. L.J. 176; and S. Edwards, “Finan-
cial Interests in Non-Real Estate Assets and the Prospects of Reforming Personal Property Security
Law in Australia” (1997) 8 J.B.FL. 93.
” Disillusionment with Article 9, rooted in concerns with the fairness of its distributional effects on
third parties, was expressed in 1981 by one of its principal architects: see G. Gilmore, ‘The Good
Faith Purchase Idea and the Uniform Code: Confessions of a Repentant Draftsman” (1981) 15 Ga. L.
Rev. 605 [hereinafter “Good Faith Purchase Idea”]. The law and economics aspect of the debate be-
gan at about the same time: see A. Schwartz, “Security Interests and Bankruptcy Priorities: A Review
of Current Theories” (1981) 10 J. Legal Stud. 1. See also T.H. Jackson & A.T. Kronman, “Secured
Financing and Priorities among Creditors” (1979) 88 Yale L.J. 1143. For a review of the intervening
scholarship and citations, see L.M. LoPucki, “The Unsecured Creditor’s Bargain” (1994) 80 Va. L.
Rev. 1887 at 1892-96 [hereinafter “Unsecured Creditor’s Bargain”]; and, passim, M.G. Bridge, “The
Quistclose Trust in a World of Secured Transactions” (1992) 12 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 333 [hereinaf-
ter ‘World of Secured Transactions”]. More recently, note the unsuccessful proposal by Professor
Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School to the American Law Institute that Article 9 be amended to
limit the priority of Article 9 secured creditors by setting aside 20% of the value of secured collateral
to satisfy the claims of unsecured claimants. For an earlier proposal along similar lines in the United
Kingdom, see U.K., Insolvency Law Review Committee, Insolvency Law and Practice: Report of the
Review Committee (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982) (Chairman: K. Cork) at paras.
1538ff. [hereinafter “Cork Committee Report”]. See R.M. Goode, “Is the Law Too Favourable to Se-
cured Creditors?” (1983) 8 Can. Bus. L.J. 53, proposing that 10% of assets subject to an “all assets”
security interest be set aside for secured creditors. Although “set aside” proposals of this kind have
generally been inspired by concerns with distributional fairness, at least some law and economics
572
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[Vol. 44
This article examines some of the reasons for the uneven reception afforded to
Article 9 and the Canadian PPSAs by focusing on the distinctive feature of the reform
model: the adoption of a unitary concept of security which replaced the complexity of
security forms and devices that prevailed under the prior law. This unitary approach is
derived from the drafters’ perception that all security interests perform an identical
function and should be subject to an identical legal framework.’2 Consequently, a se-
curity interest is defined in purely functional terms as an interest in personal property
which secures payment or performance of an obligation.”
Article 9’s unitary concept of security is typically described as reflecting a “sub-
stance over form” philosophy. Certainly, this is part of the concept.”‘ While the draft-
ers sought to codify Equity’s time-honoured willingness to look behind the form of a
debtor-creditor property transfer in order to decide its true character,” their goal was
scholars have begun to question the efficiency of awarding full priority to secured creditors upon in-
solvency. See “Priority of Secured Claims”, supra note 8; and “Reply to Critics”, supra note 8.
” See e.g. J.S. Ziegel, “The New Provincial Chattel Security Law Regimes” (1991) 70 Can. Bar
Rev. 681 at 685-86:
The distinctive feature of Article 9 is that it abolishes the pre-Code distinctions between
the multiplicity of common law, equitable and statutory security devices and replaces
them with the generic concept of a “security agreement” creating a “security interest”.
This radical solution [was) derived from the drafters’ profound insight that all security
interests serve the same function–to secure payment or performance of an obliga-
tion-and that there was no justification for the retention of the old divisions [footnotes
omitted].
“U.C.C. 1-201(37) defines “security interest” as “an interest in personal property … which se-
cures payment or performance of an obligation:’ For the equivalent PPSA definition, see e.g. New
Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 1: “‘security interest’ means an interest in personal property that
secures payment or performance of an obligation:’
“4 See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s. 3(1): “This Act applies to every transaction that in sub-
stance creates a security interest, without regard to its form” [emphasis added]. Similarly, U.C.C. 9-
102(l)(a) makes it clear that Article 9 applies “to any transaction (regardless of its form) which is in-
tended to create a security interest in personal property” [emphasis added]. To make clear the applica-
bility of Article 9 to the wide variety of pre-Code security devices, U.C.C. 9-102(2) provides that
Article 9 applies to all “security interests created by contract” and lists the different forms that secured
transactions took under prior law. For an equivalent PPSA provision, see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA,
ibid., s. 3(l)(b).
” Operating on the basis of the equitable maxim “once a mortgage, always a mortgage,” courts in
the common law tradition were willing, from a very early stage, to receive parole evidence showing
that a debtor’s conveyance of property to its creditor was subject to a transfer back on satisfaction of
the underlying loan obligation. In this situation, the transaction would be characterized as a mortgage,
not a sale, notwithstanding the parties’ use of the words “absolute transfer”. See e.g. Wilson v. Ward,
[1930] S.C.R. 212, 2 D.L.R. 433. For recent applications of this principle in the PPSA context, see
Guftral v. Miller (1994), 95 B.C.L.R. (2d) 353, 8 RPS.A.C. (2d) 96 (S.C.); and Pool v. Heaps, [1996]
B.C.WL.D. 647 (S.C.), online: QL (BCJ).
1999]
M.G. BRIDGE, ETAL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
573
also far more ambitious. They sought nothing less than to detach the legal entailments
of security from conventional property analysis.”
Prior law placed what the drafters generically called “security” along a highly-
calibrated property rights continuum. In the Canadian common law version of this
continuum, there was (i) the unpaid seller’s reservation of ownership pending pay-
ment of the price, which was not really security; (ii) the classic chattel mortgage un-
der which the debtor conveyed title to specific goods as security; (iii) the fixed equita-
ble mortgage or charge on after-acquired assets; and (iv) the floating charge over
shifting assets (inventory and accounts) under which the debtor retained the power to
manage and dispose of the collateral in the ordinary course of business. Roughly
speaking, the further along the continuum a security interest was placed, the weaker
its proprietary character for the purposes of determining the creditor’s enforcement
rights upon the debtor’s default as well as the potency of the security interest against
third party claimants.’7
For Karl Llewellyn, the legal realist who acted as Chief Reporter for the U.C.C.
project, this use of property “pigeonholes” to establish a priori answers to substantive
legal questions was too abstract, too static, and too absolutist to serve as a basis for re-
solving commercial disputes.” Llewellyn’s antipathy to conceptual property rights
analysis had its greatest impact on the drafting of U.C.C. Article 2 dealing with the
sale of goods.’9 However, it also had a significant influence on the drafters of Article 9
in their conceptualization of “security”.” Not only the form of the transaction but also
the location of title to the collateral-and by implication its proprietary quality-were
rejected as indicia of security.’ Functionalism, which respects the parties’ bargain and
” A clear example of the broader reach of title-neutral, functionalist analysis relative to classic “sub-
stance over form” thinking is the inclusion of title reservation security devices-e.g. conditional sales
and financing leases-within Article 9 and the PPSAs. Substance over form implies a dissonance
between the legal form selected by the parties and the real underlying nature of the transaction. In the
case of conditional sales and the like, no such dissonance exists. The unpaid seller is simply doing
what any prudent owner of property would do: refusing to transfer ownership until the property is
paid for. This point is considered in greater detail in Part I.B., below.
17 Parts I and II, below, address the enforcement and priority entailments of the traditional property
law approach to the classification of security interests in some detail.
“s W.L. Tabac, “The Unbearable Lightness of Title Under the Uniform Commercial Code” (1991)
50 Md. L. Rev. 408 at 409-10; H. Kfipke, “The Principles Underlying the Drafting of the Commercial
Code” [1962] U. Ill. L. Forum 321 at 328; and G. Gilmore, “Security Law, Formalism and Article 9”
(1968) 47 Neb. L. Rev. 659 at 668-69 [hereinafter “Security Law, Formalism”].
“‘9 K. Llewellyn, ‘Through Title to Contract and a Bit Beyond” (1938) 15 N.YU. L. Rev. 159 at 165-
69.
‘0 Tabac, supra note 18 at 409; and D.P. Board, “The Scope of Article 9 Is Only One Quarter as
Great as Is Commonly Supposed” (1993) 47 U. Miami L. Rev. 951.
2 All the Canadian PPSAs expressly reject the location of title as a determinant of security: see e.g.
New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 3(1)(a): “iT]his Act applies to every transaction that in sub-
stance creates a security interest, without regard to its form and without regard to the person who has
title to the collateral” [emphasis added]. See also the Official Comment to U.C.C. 9-101: “This Ar-
574
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[Vol. 44
is sensitive, not to metaphysical property constructs, but to the interests of third par-
ties, was henceforth to be the only reliable guide to modem secured financing law.
For the most part, the courts have taken to heart the drafters’ strictures against re-
lying on property analysis and title theory to resolve Article 9 and PPSA issues and
disputes. Attempts to alter priority outcomes by resorting to prior law characteriza-
tions of security have routinely been rejected.’ Instead, the courts have focused, as
functionalism directs them to do, on whether the transaction presents elements that
fall within the regulatory objectives of the Article 9 and PPSA model. This approach
leads to the discouragement of sham transfers and the curing of ostensible ownership
and “false wealth” problems, the promotion of certainty and predictability in the
resolution of priority disputes, and the protection of the interest of the debtor and any
subordinate third parties in the collateral at the point of enforcement.
Functional analysis has not, however, produced clarity. On the contrary, there is a
surprising level of confusion on the very question that a functionalist definition of
“security” was designed to answer, i.e., what is the essence of a security interest?
Many current thinkers tend to treat ownership and security as fungible and inter-
changeable concepts.” In our view, this results because of three major problems at-
tributable to Article 9 and PPSA functionalism.
tiele does not determine whether ‘title’ to collateral is in the secured party or the debtor and adopts
neither a ‘title theory’ nor a ‘lien theory’ of security interests. Rights, obligations and remedies under
the Article do not depend on the location of title (Section 9-202).”
22 For example, under prior Canadian-and current English-common law, an equitable security
interest in the nature of a “floating charge” did not attach to any specific item of collateral until the
charge was crystallized, i.e., until the debtor’s power to deal with the collateral in the ordinary course
of business was terminated. Consequently, interests acquired by competing secured or execution
creditors in specific items of collateral before crystallization generally took priority over the floating
charge security. In contrast, under the current PPSA regime, all security interests attach on the fulfil-
inent of three conditions: (i) the extension of value by the secured creditor; (ii) the debtor’s acquisition
of “rights in the collateral”; and (iii) satisfaction of the evidentiary requirements for a security agree-
ment (possession or a written agreement): see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s. 12(1). Nonetheless,
it has been argued with surprising persistence that crystallization is still a precondition to attachment
(and priority) in a PPSA regime for security interests that formerly would have qualified as floating in
nature. These arguments have been routinely rejected by the courts. Most recently, see Canadian Im-
perial Bank of Commerce v. Otto 7imm Enterprises (1995), 26 O.R. (3d) 724, 130 D.L.R. (4th) 91
(C.A.) [hereinafter Otto 71mm]; and Credit Suisse Canada v. 1133 Yonge Street Holdings (1996), 28
O.R. (3d) 670,40 C.B.R. (3d) 214 (Gen. Div.). See also R.C. Harason & D.L. Denomme, “The PPSA
and Floating Charges, Again: CI.B.C. v. Otto inn Enterprises Ltd” (1996) 12 B.FL.R. 115. Part H,
below, considers the functional underpinnings of the crystallization concept.
” This article documents some judicial illustrations of this tendency in the Canadian PPSA context.
The same observation has been made in relation to Article 9: “Article 9, which regulates security in-
terests, deals with a mere fragment of ownership. Yet the current Code thinkers tend to treat owner-
ship and security interests as fungible Code claims” (Tabac, supra note 18 at 410). It is Tabac’s thesis,
as it is part of ours, that “the transactions in goods that the Code regulates are still firmly grounded on
ownership principles and that these principles must be reckoned with to fulfil the Code’s design”
(ibid.).
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
The first problem is the analysts’ evident temptation to see the presence of ele-
ments that fall within the regulatory objectives of Article 9 and the PPSAs as being
sufficient for the transaction to be characterized as secured in nature. So, for instance,
if a non-possessory interest in property creates the risk of “ostensible ownership”
problems, there is a tendency to characterize it as a security interest so as to bring it
within the Article 9 and PPSA filing regime. This tends to occur even if the transac-
tion is otherwise factually remote from the world of secured credit. While the public-
ity problem is solved, the solution obscures consideration of whether differences be-
tween ownership and security might require a different response to the common “os-
tensible ownership” problem created by a separation of property rights and posses-
sion. Moreover, the further the characterization of security departs from the ordinary
understanding of the concept, the more potential there is for unfair surprise to parties
who, quite legitimately, did not anticipate the application of secured lending law to
their transaction.
Second, this brand of functionalism has resulted in the conscious incorporation of
certain true ownership interests within the Article 9 and PPSA regulatory framework,
albeit for limited purposes.”4 That these interests are deemed to be security interests
demonstrates that the drafters, despite their antipathy to title analysis, saw ownership
and security as distinct concepts. Nonetheless, the use of a drafting technique-
deeming something to be that which it is not, itself a celebration of form over
substance-has contributed to the blurring of that distinction.
Third, the embrace of functionalism of Article 9 and the PPSAs is more than a
little ambivalent. Its abandonment of property concepts is not as absolute as an iso-
lated reading of the definition of “security” might lead us to suppose. Doctrinally, the
priority afforded to secured creditors over other claimants continues to be conceptu-
alized and justified in property terms: a security interest is an interest in personal
property.’ Consequently, it remains necessary to include charging language in a secu-
rity agreement for it to qualify as such. What functionalism has done, however, is
blur the traditional distinctions between the relative property rights attaching to differ-
24 Although Article 9 and the PPSAs adopt practically identical language to define “security inter-
est”, they differ in their approach to non-security institutions. Notably, Article 9 and the Ontario PPSA
extend their reach beyond “true” security interests only to the assignment of accounts or chattel paper
by outright sale, whereas the newer and reformed Canadian PPSAs add non-security commercial con-
signments and non-security leases for a term of more than one year to their list of “deemed” security
interests: see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 3(2)(a)-(c). The New Brunswick PPSA also
includes a “sale of goods without a change of possession of the goods sold” definition (ibid., s. 1) if
the sale takes place outside of the ordinary course of business. This is essentially a continuation of the
policy found in the old Bills of Sale Act, R.S.N.B. 1986, c. B-3. See New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s.
3(2)(d).
‘ “Security interest” is universally defined in Article 9 and the PPSAs as a proprietary interest. See
e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s. 1: “‘security interest’ means an interest in personal property”
[emphasis added].
26 See e.g. LCI International Inc. v. STN Inc. (1996), 10 E.T.R. (2d) 297 (Ont. Gen. Div.), online:
QL (0).
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ent types of security interests. In conventional property rights analysis, the “all-assets”
financier who holds a security interest in the debtor’s entire estate is now on the same
conceptual plane as the unpaid seller who reserves ownership in a specific asset as se-
curity. Both are presumptively subject to the residual “first-to-register” rule of priority
which underlies Article 9 and the PPSAs, and both suffer the same disastrous priority
repercussions in the event of a failure to register. Article 9 and the PPSAs recognize
the need to qualify the functionalist baseline. The most prominent example regarding
this qualification is the “super-priority” afforded to later purchase money financiers
against a first-in-time all-assets secured party. The relative priority status of different
types of security is, however, no longer built into the formal classification of the secu-
rity interest or its proprietary character.7 The result of this unitary approach to security
is a psychological climate favouring the first-in-time all-assets secured creditor
against later creditors, both secured and unsecured. This, in turn, imposes a heavy
onus on those who argue for any alteration in the distribution of an insolvent debtor’s
estate.
Part I of this article considers the continued relevance of formal property analysis
in the characterization of security interests in Article 9 and PPSA regimes and the ex-
tent to which this has been recognized, thus far, in the jurisprudence and commentary.
As we shall see, recognition of the formal limits on functionalism is important in or-
der to understand a number of problems including the scope of the Article 9 and
PPSA regimes, the limits on extending a secured lending regulatory regime to non-
security transactions, and the intersection between conventional property transfer
analysis and functionalism both within and outside the Article 9 and PPSA frame-
work.
Part II addresses the implications of the compression of all security interests into
a unitary property concept-the third of the three problems with functionalism out-
lined above-upon the insolvency distribution policy. In our view, the perception that
any erosion in the primacy of secured credit in favour of the debtor’s general creditors
is presumptively suspect would be less prevalent if it were recognized at the outset
that different security interests may be entitled to a different level of protection in a
conventional property rights analysis. While this may seem to be a reversion to the
antiquated mode of thinking about security on personalty, the substantive rules de-
rived from the formalism of commercial practice in many ways reflected a more nu-
anced functionalism than the functionalism of even the “realist” drafters of Article 9.
Recognition of the limits of Article 9 and PPSA functionalism is itself made eas-
ier by going outside the Article 9 and PPSA world altogether. The United Kingdom
has, for instance, managed to get along without Article 9 and, in fact, has actively re-
” See e.g. T.H. Jackson & E.A. Peters, “Quest for Uncertainty: A Proposal for Flexible Resolution
of the Inherent Conflicts between Article 2 and Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code” (1978)
87 Yale L.J. 907 at 913, observing that under Article 9, the legal incidents of security interests vary
according to factual and functional distinctions-the type of collateral, its physical location, the pur-
pose of the loan-rather than the form of the agreement or the location of title.
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sisted its adoption. Quebec-notwithstanding its location within the world of North
American commerce-has also resisted the call to adopt the functionalist concept of
security that lies at the heart of the Article 9 and PPSA model during the recent recon-
ceptualization of its law of secured transactions. These two inquiries are canvassed in
Parts III and IV, respectively. There we review in some detail the law of those juris-
dictions to throw into relief our analysis of functionalism. Our aim is to demonstrate
that the present analysis is better understood by reference to-while also permitting
the better understanding of-the reform (or the absence thereof) in those two
jurisdictions.
We conclude that our lengthy internal and comparative analysis of secured trans-
actions law shows that functionalism is in fact not the answer, not even part of the an-
swer, to the reform of the law of secured transactions. Functionalism is, at best, the
question.
I. Form over Function
in the Characterization of Security
Interests
It is intrinsic to the creation of security under the Ca-
nadian [PPSAs) that the beneficial title in property
subject to a security interest is, or remains, in the
debtor and that once the secured obligation has been
discharged the debtor becomes the unencumbered
owner of the collateral2.
This proposition is from a leading text on the Ontario PPSA. Its thrust-that the
hallmark of a PPSA security interest is the location of beneficial title to the collateral
in the debtor-is unremarkable when applied to our conventional understanding of
security.’ Yet, for the same reason, it is redolent of the older conceptual models of
analysis that Article 9 and the PPSAs, with their expressed indifference to the location
of title, would apparently have us renounce. After all, pursuant to a functionalist
model, the essence of a security interest is not determined by the formal legal frame-
work out of which it arises, but in what it seeks to accomplish. So, a transaction cast
2 Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 63. In their view, this proposition explains why a Quistclose
trust does not qualify as a security interest under the PPSAs. That form of trust, and that issue, are ex-
amined in Part I.F., below.
” See e.g. R.M. Goode, Legal Problems of Credit and Security (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1982)
at 2: “There are only three types of consensual security known to English law: the pledge, the mort-
gage and the charge.” Under each of these, beneficial title to the collateral originates with the debtor,
or more accurately, does not originate with the secured party. This latter qualification is necessary be-
cause it is of course possible for owners to put up their assets as security for another’s debt, a possi-
bility recognized in the definition of “debtor” in the PPSAs. See e.g. Ontario PPSA, supra note 6, s.
1(1): “‘debtor’ means a person who owes payment or other performance of an obligation secured,
whether or not the person owns or has rights in the collateral”
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in some other form-sale, trust, lease, consignment, etc.-may nonetheless constitute
a security interest if it functions to secure payment or performance of an obligation?
We question the explanatory power of a purely functionalist definition of security.
Rather than distinguishing a secured transaction from other forms of property transfer,
functionalism eliminates any meaningful distinction between them. Consider the re-
cent decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in RWC. The Land Co. (Re-
ceiver of) v. Bohun. Under an agreement between a real estate seller and the licensed
agent with whom she was associated, the proceeds of sales negotiated by the seller
were to be processed by the agent subject to an express trust in favour of the seller for
her commissions. Upon the agent’s insolvency, the receiver appointed by the agent’s
secured creditor argued that the trust arrangement was in substance a security interest
and, as such, was ineffective against the receiver for want of registration under the
British Columbia PPSA. The Court of Appeal referred the issue back to the trial court
for determination, observing that the trust created by the agreement “[a]rguably … was
intended to secure payment of [the seller’s] commissions”‘ 2 so as to qualify as a secu-
rity interest under the PPSA’s functional definition.”
There is no doubt that the trust arrangement between the agent and the seller was
designed to secure the seller’s commissions against both the agent and the claims of
the agent’s creditors. Nonetheless, if an agreement of this type is perceived to create
security, then so does any trust-agency agreement, and indeed any real claim against
assets in another’s possession or control. Clearly, the courts should not have to accept
whatever label the parties put on their transaction; however, they should not feel free,
absent a sufficient legislative directive, to disregard the legal entailments associated
with a transactional form appropriate to the achievement of the parties’ business ob-
jectives. We are not dealing here, after all, with a “colourable” use of the trust vehicle
to shore up a secured creditor’s claim to the proceeds of collateral?’
” On the unitary, functionalist concept of security at the heart of Article 9 and the PPSAs, see
the text accompanying notes 12-21, above.
” (1997), 29 B.C.L.R. (3d) 179, 30 B.L.R. (2d) 149 (C.A.) [hereinafter EWC. Land cited to
B.C.L.R.].
‘Ibid. at 191.
“See
infra note 36 and accompanying text. On the reference back to the trial level, Hutchison L did
not find it necessary to determine the issue. He reasoned that even if the trust agreement between the
parties with respect to the seller’s commissions created a security interest as alleged, it was excepted
from the scope of application of the British Columbia PPSA, supra note 6, s. 4(d) which excludes “an
interest in present or future wages, salary, pay, commission or any other compensation for labour or
personal services:’ While the other Canadian PPSAs likewise exclude wage assignments, there are
significant variations among provinces in the scope and even the policy basis for the exclusion which
is derived from U.C.C. 9-104(d): see An hItroduction, supra note 6 at 46.
” Compare Hounsomne Estates v. John Deere Ltd. (1991), 3 O.R. (3d) 89, 4 C.B.R. (3d) 32 (Gen.
Div.) [hereinafter Hounsone cited to O.R.] where the holder of an unperfected assignment of an in-
solvent debtor’s receivables argued-unsuccessfully-that because the assignment nominated the
debtor a trustee of the proceeds from the collection of the receivables, the proceeds constituted trust
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Analysts readily acknowledge that Article 9’s open-ended definition of “security”
cannot be taken at face value’ Thus, there is a tendency to focus not so much on the
function of the transaction but on whether its substance or the parties’ intention en-
gages the “secured transactions” label.? These same analysts, however, are reluctant
to develop a more refined qualification on functionalism’s inherent overreach?7 While
this reluctance is presumably occasioned by the concern of being led back into the
world of arcane property doctrine, the failure to achieve certainty in something as
fundamental as the very nature of security is curiously at odds with Article 9’s prefer-
ence for certainty over discretion, for rules over standards.
property belonging to the assignee, thus were outside the bankrupt debtor’s estate. Therefore, it was
argued that they could not be reached by the debtor’s trustee in bankruptcy notwithstanding the as-
signee’s failure to file under the PPSA. In rejecting that argument, Rosenberg J. employed the kind of
formal beneficial title analysis captured by the proposition quoted in the text accompanying note 28,
above:
From my analysis of the cases it appears that where the funds are never the property of
the assignor [debtor], then the trust arrangement does not require a registration … under
the Personal Property Security Act. However, in cases where the receivable or property
is that of the assignor [debtor] at the time of making the assignment, then the assign-
ment must be registered by filing a financial statement under the Personal Property Se-
curity Act. In this case the receivable did belong to the … [debtors] at the time that they
made the assignment and accordingly it had to be registered under the Personal Prop-
erty Security Act (Hounsome, ibid. at 97).
3′ See e.g. JJ. White & R.S. Summers, Uniform Conunercial Code, 4th ed. (St. Paul, Mn.: West,
1995) vol. 4 at 5:
But the definition of security interest in [U.C.C.] section 1-201(37) cannot be taken at
face value. Section 1-201(37) defines “security interest” to mean any “interest in per-
sonal property or fixtures which secures payment or performance of an obligation” a
definition broad enough to include any distinctive claim to assets of a debtor that a
creditor might assert on default [emphasis in original].”
See also Security Interests, supra note 2 at 336-37: “Article 9, for all its comprehensiveness, is a
statute drafted to regulate certain well-known and institutionalized financing transactions ”
36 That the function of a transaction and its substantive character are not quite the same thing seems
to have been recognized by the Court in EW.C. Land, supra note 31 at 191. In deciding to refer the
characterization issue back to the trial level, the Court’s exact words were:
[S]. 2(1) of the PRS.A. states that it applies not only to every transaction that “in sub-
stance creates a security interest”, but also “to a … trust, and a transfer of chattel paper
where they secure payment or performance of an obligation” Arguably, the trust cre-
ated by … the agreement … was intended to secure payment of [the seller’s] commis-
sions.
See e.g. Board, supra note 20 at 960:
An aversion to explicit conceptualization (not to mention systematization) has marked
commercial-law scholarship for fifty years. It is unclear whether this aversion has saved
Article 9 from the vices of “conceptualism” but it has certainly discouraged efforts to
analyse, classify, and compare transfer transactions and the rules that determine their
consequences [footnotes omitted].
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In our view, the above-mentioned proposition provides a test for distinguishing
security interests from other forms of property transfer. The test rightfully ensures that
the emphasis is placed on the way in which the parties have allocated the residual
economic interest in the putative collateral. In other words, emphasis is placed on the
location of beneficial title upon discharge of the “secured” obligation.
In the following section, consideration is given to the utility of the above-cited
proposition, the significance of its qualification of functionalism, and the extent to
which it has or has not been applied in PPSA analysis and caselaw.
A. Sale and Security: Accounts and Chattel Paper Financing
Accounts and chattel paper may be purchased outright or transferred condition-
ally as collateral security for a loan. From a functionalist point of view, there is little to
distinguish the two forms of transfer. The assignee-buyer is as much a financier as the
assignee-lender in that they both represent a source of immediate working capital for
the assignor’s business. 8 Furthermore, should the assignor become insolvent, the as-
signee’s real interest in the collateral functions to give it priority over other creditors
whether the assignment is by way of sale or security. Article 9 and the PPSAs apply to
both forms of transfer.9 This is typically offered as evidence of the drafters’ functional
approach to the concept of security. The authors of a leading text on the U.C.C. char-
acterize “factors” as “lenders in sheep’s clothing”‘ and, therefore, it is only “just” that
they should be regulated as such.
In our view, the functional identity of sale and security assignments is an inaccu-
rate, even misleading, explanation of why both should be included within the Article
9 and PPSA model. After all, the drafters themselves did not see the interest of a
buyer-assignee as being automatically included within their functional definition of
“security”. They found it necessary to expressly extend that definition,” thereby con-
., See Security hIterests, supra note 2 at 128-29: “[F]actoring is a financing arrangement. … In sub-
stance the factor is a supplier of working capital, not a joint venturer in a business enterprise. In that
sense one may properly describe him as a financier, a ‘banker’, a lender of money against security.”
See also L.M. LoPucki, “The Death of Liability” (1996-97) 106 Yale L.J. I at 26, n. 108 [hereinafter
“Death of Liability”]:
The typical purpose of an asset-securitization transaction [a highly sophisticated exten-
sion of traditional “factoring”] today is to remedy a working capital deficiency, to re-
place more expensive financing, or to acquire the working capital necessary for expan-
sion of the company’s operations. The proceeds either remain with the company or are
used to retire other financing.
See Security hIterests, ibid. at 334.
o White & Summers, supra note 35 at 66.
“U.C.C. 9-102(1): “[T]his Article applies … (b) to any sale of accounts or chattel paper”; U.C.C.
1-201(37): “The term [‘security interest’] also includes any interest of a buyer of accounts or chattel
paper which is subject to Article 9”; U.C.C. 9-105(1)(d): “‘debtor’ … includes the seller of accounts
or chattel paper”; and U.C.C. 9-105(1)(m):
‘secured party’ … [includes] a person to whom ac-
counts or chattel paper have been sold’ The wording of the equivalent PPSA provisions makes it even
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
ceding it to be an “artificial” enlargement of the notion of security in the interests of
drafting convenience.” Moreover, a sale was included within the definition of a “secu-
rity interest” only so as to bring into play the perfection and priority rules-not the
enforcement rules-applicable to this regime.
The Article 9 and PPSA enforcement regime is constructed around the premise
that the debtor retains the residual beneficial title to the collateral: the secured party’s
real remedies against the collateral are contingent upon the debtor’s default and are
then limited to the value needed to satisfy the secured obligation. Thus, implicit in
the exclusion of sale assignments from the security enforcement regime is the idea
that sale and security remain distinct transactions even in a functionalist world, and that
the source of this distinction lies in the location of beneficial title in the collateral.”
This distinction is sometimes obscured by the particular characterization difficul-
ties that attend assignments of accounts and chattel paper. This is attributable, in part,
to formal considerations such as the tendency of lawyers to draft both transactions in
the common language of sale. 5 Moreover, the characterization difficulties are corn-
more apparent that the drafters did not regard sales of accounts and chattel paper as included within a
functional definition of “security”. See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 3(2): “[T]his Act
applies … (c) to a transfer of an account or chattel paper … that [does] not secure payment or per-
formance of an obligation” [emphasis added]; and s. 1: “‘security interest’ means … (b) the interest of
… (iii) a transferee under a transfer of an account or a transfer of chattel paper … that does not secure
payment or performance of an obligation; … ‘debtor’ means … (d) a transferor of an account or chattel
paper” [emphasis added].
42 See Security Interests, supra note 2 at 334.
4′ Thus, unless the security takes the form of a pledge, the secured party’s right to take possession of
the collateral is contingent upon the debtor’s default. In either case, while the goods are in the secured
party’s possession, the secured party is subject to a non-disclaimable duty of reasonable care and its
right to exploit the value of the collateral is subject to significant constraints. If the secured party fails
to protect the debtor’s interest in the collateral, it may be liable to the debtor. Perhaps most signifi-
cantly, the secured party must account to the debtor for any surplus and is entitled to claim any defi-
ciency following liquidation of the value of the collateral. See generally Part 5 of U.C.C. Article 9,
and the Canadian PPSAs.
“A point confirmed by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Alberta (Treasury
Branches) v. M.N.R., [1996] 1 S.C.R. 963, 133 D.L.R. (4th) 609 [hereinafter Alberta (Treasury
Branches) cited to D.L.R.]. Further discussion of this case is found in the text accompanying notes
170ff., below.
41 See e.g. the form of security assignment in issue in Alberta (Treasury Branches), ibid. See also
T.E. Plank, “Sacred Cows and Workhorses: The Sale of Accounts and Chattel Paper under the U.C.C.
and the Effects of Violating a Fundamental Drafting Principle” (1994) 26 Conn. L. Rev. 397 at 408-
09 [hereinafter “Sacred Cows”]:
Perhaps to obtain the legal advantages that factors had or perhaps simply because of the
lawyers’ tendency to copy familiar forms, the parties frequently characterized these
[security] assignments as “sales” … even though the assignor retained almost all of the
benefits and burdens of owning the accounts. Despite the “sale” language, these trans-
actions were primarily lending transactions.
Prior to Article 9 reform in the United States, the temptation to cast security assignments as sales
must have been particularly acute in light of the hostility of the courts to wide open lending on the se-
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pounded where the seller provides the buyer with a recourse or promises a fixed rate
of interest. Credit recourse provisions are ambiguous in nature. Recourse may simply
represent the assignor’s guarantee of the soundness of the assigned accounts consis-
tent with a sales characterization, or it may represent a disguised deficiency claim
consistent with a security characterization. Identifying its nature is labour intensive
and involves an examination of other factors-principally the price paid and the terms
of the servicing obligation-to determine the location of residual ownership.’
On a variant of the functional explanation, the official commentary to Article 9
states that the characterization problem is the reason for subjecting the sale of ac-
counts and chattel paper to the same regulation as a security interest. Since accounts
financing is conducted in such a way as to blur the distinction between the outright
sale of accounts and their transfer by way of security, the inclusion of both within the
Article 9 framework prevents the formation of a potential loophole with regard to the
requirement for public notice.” We question this rationale. The law does not require
all property transfer transactions to be publicized on pain of subordination simply to
avoid disputes about their true character. Moreover, while this technique may reduce
the characterization problem, it does not eliminate it. Within Article 9, it remains nec-
essary to distinguish sale and security assignments at the level of enforcement. Out-
side that framework, the distinction retains relevance for a wide variety of business
and legal purposes.” Finally, if characterization is the concern, it is not clear why it is
curity of accounts. Any retention of dominion or control over the accounts was regarded as inconsis-
tent with the transfer of a property right by way of security and strict policing was required: see
“Good Faith Purchase Idea”, supra note 11 at 620-27. An outright sale of accounts was perfectly re-
spectable, however, so the language of sale might have been used in an effort to avoid the pitfalls of
the security characterization.
46 See generally T.E. Plank, “The True Sale of Loans and the Role of Recourse” (1991) 14 Geo.
Mason U. L. Rev. 287. See also R.H. Ryan, “Banking and Commercial Law: Trade Receivables Pur-
chases” in American Law Institute & American Bar Association, eds., ALI-ABA Course of Study
(Philadelphia: American Law Institute and American Bar Association Continuing Legal Education,
1996) vol. 20,507.
4 Official Comment 2 to U.C.C. 9-102(1)(b): “Commercial financing on the basis of accounts and
chattel paper is often so conducted that the distinction between a security transfer and a sale is
blurred, and a sale of such property is therefore covered by section (1)(b) whether intended as security
or not:’ This comment first appeared in the 1972 Official Text for which Homer Kripke, a long
standing proponent of the view that there is no meaningful distinction between sale and security as-
signments, was the Associate Reporter. See “Sacred Cows”, supra note 45 at 439, n. 196-97 and at
437, n. 188.
48 The distinction has substantive consequences for such varied purposes as accounting, taxation,
and bankruptcy: see Ryan, supra note 46 at 559ff. Most significant, perhaps, are the bankruptcy re-
percussions of the distinction. If accounts are sold outright, there is no residual interest left for distri-
bution to general creditors and the assignee’s collection rights are not affected by the bankruptcy pro-
ceedings. Yet if the assignment is by way of security, the trustee can still reach the assignor’s residual
interest in the accounts and the assignee’s enforcement rights can be suspended by a reorganization.
The bankruptcy implications are especially critical in the rapidly growing field of asset securitization.
Asset securitization involves the issuance of securities representing designated assets, prototypically
the accounts receivable of a business. The business creates a “bankruptcy-remote vehicle”, a separate
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M. G. BRIDGE, Er AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
583
necessary to identify a sale as a security. An equally effective and logical solution
would be to characterize security assignments as sales.
In our view, the only really persuasive justification for including both sale and se-
curity assignments of accounts and chattel paper within Article 9 and the PPSAs is
that they both fall within the general regulatory objectives underlying the Article 9
and PPSA perfection and priority framework. ‘ 9 Consider first the need to protect the
informational and reliance interests of subsequent assignees. If the first assignee,
whether taking by sale or security, were not required to publicize its interest, subse-
quent assignees would have no reliable means of knowing whether or not the as-
signor’s accounts and chattel paper had already been sold or encumbered. Ranking
the assignments according to the order in which each is publicized by registration or
possession ensures that prospective assignees are not exposed to the unfair surprise
of a prior “secret” assignment. This enables them to calculate more efficiently the
lending risk or the accuracy of the sale price, as the case may be.
Consider next the need to protect the assignee’s general creditors. In the case of a
security assignment, mandatory registration coupled with a writing requirement pro-
vides objective evidence that an assignment by way of security is not an unjust prefer-
legal entity, to whom the accounts are sold. Securitization reduces the net financing costs for the busi-
ness by eliminating the risk of bankruptcy to the bankruptcy-remote entity’s investors. Its success,
therefore, depends on achieving a true sale of the accounts, requiring the originator to limit, if not
forego altogether, any residual beneficial interest in the receivables. See generally S.L. Schwarcz,
“The Alchemy of Asset Securitization” (1994) 1 Stan. J. L. Bus. & Fin. 133 at 141-42. See also P.L.
Mancini, “Bankruptcy and the UCC as Applied to Securitization: Characterizing a Mortgage Loan
Transfer as a Sale or Secured Loan” (1993) 73 Boston U. L. Rev. 873.
See Ryan, ibid. t 512:
A better explanation [than the characterization difficulties cited in the Official Com-
ment to U.C.C. 9-102] is that it is difficult to detect the change of ownership of ac-
counts and (unless the buyer takes possession) chattel paper and therefore it is appro-
priate to require the buyer to take a step for perfection (filing of a financing statement
or possession in the case of chattel paper).
See also D.G. Baird, “Security Interests Reconsidered” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 2249 at 2267-69 ob-
serving that sales of accounts produce the same publicity problems as security assignments and advo-
cating notice through public filing for both. The publicity justification explains why assignments that
do not pose an “ostensible ownership” risk to third parties are excluded from Article 9. See U.C.C.
9-104(f) which excludes the sale of accounts or chattel paper as part of a sale of the business out of
which they arose, an assignment for purposes of collection only, a transfer to an assignee who is to as-
sume performance under the contract, and a transfer of a single account in whole or partial satisfac-
tion of indebtedness. As well, while not excluded from Article 9 as such, an assignment of accounts
“which does not alone or in conjunction with other assignments to the same assignee transfer a sig-
nificant part of the outstanding accounts of the assignor” is by Article 9-302(1)(e) excepted from fil-
ing. The PPSA exemptions are not quite so broadly cast, covering only the first three of these five
categories: see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 4(d), (g), (h).
” As a practical matter, taking possession of the collateral is feasible only in the case of an assign-
ment of chattel paper where the obligation is embodied in documentary form. Accounts are pure in-
tangibles for which registration is the only practical means of perfection.
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ence.” In the case of an outright sale, the same requirements reduce any dispute or ne-
cessity for proof of whether the purchaser extended new value thereby eliminating
any suspicion of fraud. Admittedly, if the sale is at arm’s length, a challenge of this
sort is unlikely to be a problem. However, the decision to sell its accounts outright
may at times signal a firm’s financial distress. At the very least, it effects a radical
change in the assignor’s financial condition that is not outwardly apparent to trade
creditors in the absence of a publicity mechanism. 2
This explanation is consistent with pre-reform, “pre-functionalist” policy. At
common law, in the absence of actual notice, priority between competing assignments
of the same debt was determined by the order in which the assignees gave notice to
the third party obligor on the account regardless of whether the assignment was by
way of sale or security.” Though expressed as a rule of priority, one of the major ra-
tionales for this doctrine was the need for perfection or publicity.’ It can be argued
that the rule enabled a prospective assignee to rely, with a measure of confidence, on
the results of an inquiry of the third party debtors as to whether the assignor’s ac-
counts had already been sold or encumbered. With the advent of non-notification ac-
counts receivable financing, however, this method of perfection became unfairly arbi-
trary and did not protect the assignor’s general creditors. It was in response to these
problems that the legislatures in the various states of the United States and provinces
of Canada enacted registration legislation circa the 1920s and 1930s, making regis-
” See e.g. S.L, Harris & C.W. Mooney, “A Property-Based Theory of Security Interests: Taking
Debtors’ Choices Seriously” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 2021 at 2056 [hereinafter “Taking Debtors’
Choices Seriously”]:
Just as public notice of a transaction (typically a filed financing statement) has been
thought to ameliorate an ostensible ownership problem, so public notice has been
thought to reduce the likelihood that a debtor and a third party will conspire to defeat
the claims of a creditor by asserting that the third party took a security interest when, in
fact, the third party did not.
Consider also ibid. at 2057: “For the most part courts and commentators have not distinguished
between ‘ostensible ownership’ and ‘sham transaction’ fraud.”
“Baird, supra note 49 at 2262.
“This, at any rate, was the English and Canadian common law doctrine as embodied in the rule in
Dearie v. Hall (1828), 3 Russ. 1, 38 E.R. 475 (L.C.). In the United States, prior to Article 9, while
some states adhered to the same rule, others ranked assignments according to a simple first-in-time
rule: see “Sacred Cows”, supra note 45 at 410. The greater publicity problems associated with the
latter rule may explain why the United States courts required the assignee of accounts by way of secu-
rity to exercise greater control over the accounts and their proceeds than its Canadian counterparts:
see “Security Law, Formalism”, supra note 18.
‘ For a recent discussion, see C. Walsh, “Registration, Constructive Notice, and the Rule in Dearie
v. Hall-Judicial Reform in Nova Scotia: Martin v. Slubenacadie” (1996) 12 B.FL.R. 129 at 135ff.
[hereinafter “Judicial Reform in Nova Scotia”]. For the classic review and critique of the proffered ra-
tionales for the rule (including this one), see Ward v. Duncombe, [1893] A.C. 369,42 W.R. 59 (H.L.),
Macnaghten L.J.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
tration of both sale and security assignments mandatory on pain of subordination to
subsequent assignees and the assignor’s creditors and trustee in bankruptcy.”
In the Canadian provinces, the need for such legislation was also prompted by
changes in the federal bankruptcy law. Identifying the true basis for including the out-
right sale of accounts within Article 9 and the PPSAs illustrates the aversion to title
analysis associated with the drafters’ functionalism. It demonstrates that, at the level
of perfection and priority, the distinction between security and ownership is indeed ir-
relevant. The significant question is not whether the interest should be characterized
as one of ownership or security, but whether it raises the sort of problems that a pub-
licity regime applicable to non-possessory security interests is best geared to address.
In other words, the drafters did not necessarily view the location of title as irrelevant
to the concept of security, but rather to the kinds of problems that a perfection and
priority regime is designed to redress.
While the perfection and priority policies regulating security interests can be logi-
cally extended to other non-possessory property rights, we question the wisdom of ef-
fecting that extension by deeming them to be security interests. However convenient
from the drafters’ viewpoint, this technique can obscure consideration of whether
other forms of transaction should be similarly regulated.” Moreover, the concept of
security in secured lending law should be consistent with-or at least, not overtly in-
consistent with-related bodies of commercial law.” Yet, in combination with the
drafters’ aversion to conventional property analysis, the decision to call a sale of ac-
counts a security interest might suggest that the buyer acquires something less than
ownership. The fact that the buyer’s interest can be defeated by the prior registration
of a subsequent assignment under the Article 9 and PPSA regime may, therefore,
contribute to analytical confusion to the extent it suggests that the seller retains a re-
sidual interest in the collateral.”
5 “Judicial Reform in Nova Scotia”, ibid. at 131, 134-35.
For a comprehensive criticism of this aspect of Article 9, see “Sacred Cows”, supra note 45 espe-
cially at 443, 474-88. See also S.L. Schwarcz, “A Fundamental Inquiry into the Statutory Rulemaking
Process of Private Legislatures” (1995) 29 Ga. L. Rev. 909 at 930 [hereinafter “Fundamental In-
quiry”] observing that the confusion created by the decision of the Article 9 drafters to deem a sale of
accounts to be a security interest in order to avoid having to refer to both types of assignment demon-
strates that “clarity does not always mean simplicity or economy of expression.”
17 For instance, as their title implies, the old bills of sale and chattel mortgages statutes applied to
both the outright sale and the mortgage of goods where the buyer or mortgagee did not assume actual
possession (and in the case of a sale, where the transaction took place outside the ordinary course of
business, although this latter qualification was not included in all acts-with unfortunate repercus-
sions). Yet among Article 9 and PPSA jurisdictions, only two-New Brunswick and Nova Scotia-
have carried forward the old bills of sale policy. See New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 1:
“security interest”, and s. 3(2)(d). See also An Introduction, supra note 6, for commentary on s. 3.
5’8 “Fundamental Inquiry”, supra note 56 at 939.
” See e.g White & Summers, supra note 35 at 67: “Since outright sales of accounts are covered by
Article 9 it is hard to escape the inference that a debtor, having ‘sold’ nearly everything, still has some
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This potential for confusion was present in a recent bankruptcy decision in the
United States. This case held that accounts sold by a debtor prior to filing for bank-
ruptcy nonetheless remained part of the bankrupt’s estate since sales of accounts were
treated as security interests under Article 9.’ This is the effective result in the event
that the assignee-buyer fails to register. Under Article 9 and the PPSAs, an unper-
fected assignment is treated as ineffective or void against the assignor’s trustee, and in
this sense, it is as though the sale had never occurred.’ If the sale is properly per-
fected, however, the accounts remain outside the bankrupt’s estate.
The court’s ruling in Octagon Gas2 generated widespread concern. Treating a
sale of accounts as a mere security interest threatened the legal foundation of asset se-
curitizations involving accounts, the success of which depends on the legal ability of
the originator of the accounts to effect their true sale to a bankruptcy-remote entity.”
Within two weeks of the decision, the U.C.C.’s Permanent Editorial Board issued a
property right, however remote:’ In fact, Article 9 and the PPSAs merely require that a debtor have
“rights in the collateral” as a condition for the attachment (creation) of a security interest, including a
deemed security interest. Although the meaning of this term is not free from controversy, it is clear
that the debtor need not own the collateral (or have the consent of the owner). Otherwise, a debtor
who had sold its accounts or chattel paper outright would have no property interest left to support the
attachment of a second assignment so as to engage the Article 9 and PPSA first-to-register rule of pri-
ority, a conclusion that would defeat the central purpose of including both sale and security assign-
ments within the same perfection and priority structure, Avoidance of this conceptual problem may
explain why the Article 9 drafters replaced the requirement that the debtor have or acquire “an interest
in the collateral” which appeared in the first draft, with the words “rights in the collateral:’ The latter
term is sufficiently innocuous to include the debtor’s “contingent” power under Article 9 and the
PPSAs to defeat a buyer-assignee’s interest by making a second assignment, Le., “contingent” on the
second assignee filing first. See D.T. Coenen, “Priorities in Accounts: The Crazy Quilt of Current
Law and a Proposal for Reform” (1992) 45 Vand. L. Rev. 1061 at 1076-80; and “Sacred Cows”, su-
pra note 45 at 489-90, n. 42. See also Agent’s Equity Inc. v. Hope (Trustee o) (1996), 40 C.B.R. (3d)
310, 29 D.L.R. (2d) 287 (Ont. Gen. Div.) [hereinafter Agent’s Equity].
‘0 This was the reasoning of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Octagon Gas Systems, Inc. v.
Rinuner, 995 E2d 948 at 956 (10th Cir. 1993), online: WL (CTA) [hereinafter Octagon Gas] with the
result that royalties sold outright to a third party prior to bankruptcy remained the property of the
debtor and part of the bankruptcy estate. See also “Sacred Cows”, ibid. at 453-60; and Baird, supra
note 49 at 2267, n. 42.
61 This interpretation was recently confirmed in the PPSA context in Agent’s Equity, supra note 59.
A real estate agent who had sold commissions due on the sale of real estate to a factor became bank-
rupt before the commissions were paid. The factor had failed to file under the Ontario PPSA, supra
note 6, triggering s. 20(l)(b) under which an unperfected security interest (extended to include a sale
of accounts) is ineffective against the debtor’s trustee in bankruptcy. The assignor challenged the
trustee’s priority on the basis that the accounts, having been sold prior to bankruptcy, were no longer
the “property of the bankrupt” under s. 67(I)(a) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, R.S.C. 1985,
c. B-3. In rejecting that argument, the court reasoned, first, that the trustee can rely on provincial law
to determine what falls within or outside the bankrupt’s estate and, second, because the PPSA makes
an unperfected sale of accounts ineffective against the trustee, the assignment is tantamount to being
void and the accounts therefore remain within the bankrupt’s estate.
6, Supra note 60.
63 See generally supra note 48.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
proposed commentary describing the holding as “erroneously stated”. ‘ Article 9, it
was emphasized, was not intended to prevent a transfer of beneficial title in accounts.
It was simply a drafting technique aimed primarily at ensuring the application of the
Article 9 perfection rules and was not relevant as such to the sale/security distinction.
Nor is the potential for mischief limited to the sort of context represented by Oc-
tagon Gas. Reformers in at least one other common law jurisdiction looking at Article
9’s incltusion of the absolute assignment of accounts had difficulty explaining why ab-
solute assignments should be subjected to the perfection and priority regime inspired
by Article 9.’
B. The Unpaid Seller’s Reservation of Title and Security
Even in a functionalist world, our analysis of sale and security assignments dem-
onstrates the continued vitality of the distinction between ownership and security. The
inclusion of conditional sales and analogous title reservation agreements” stands,
however, in apparent contradiction to this proposition. After all, it is precisely this
factor-the
the
debtor/buyer-that prevented the common law from characterizing an unpaid seller’s
the creditor/seller rather
location of beneficial
title
in
than
“Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code, Proposed Commentary No. 14,
U.C.C. s. 9-102(1)(b) (Philadelphia: Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code,
1994) (issued 24 January 1994). See also B. Clark, The Law of Secured Transactions under the Uni-
form Commercial Code, rev. ed. (Boston: Warren Gorham Lamont, 1993) [hereinafter 1993 Law of
Secured Transactions], 1996 Cumulative Supplement at S1.11-S1.12:
The application of Article 9 to the sale of accounts does not prevent the transfer of
ownership from seller to buyer for bankruptcy purposes. The U.C.C. was not intended
to take away the right of an owner of property to transfer ownership to another. The ba-
sic distinction between the sale and securing of accounts is seen in the fact that any
surplus from collections goes to the buyer in the case of a sale and to the seller in the
case of a security assignment. The limited purpose for which Article 9 applies to the
sale of accounts is to avoid litigation on characterization and to notify third parties of
the assignee’s interest. But this limited purpose does not prevent characterization of ab-
solute assignments as sales for other purposes albeit that Art. 9 does have a bankruptcy
impact insofar as the failure of the buyer to file allows the trustee to grab the accounts
under the “strong-arm clause” (art. 544(a)) of the Bankruptcy Code. But that impact
does not affect the transfer of ownership between seller and buyer.
6′ See Australian Law Reform Commission, Report No. 64: Personal Property Securities (Canberra:
Australian Law Reform Commission, 1993) at paras. 5.14-5.17.
“U.C.C. 9-102(2) lists a variety of contractually-created security interests to which Article 9 is
expressly applicable. These include a “conditional sale, trust receipt, [and] other lien or title retention
contract and lease or consignment intended as security.” As well, U.C.C. 9-102(1)(a)-the general
scope section for Article 9–expressly includes “the retention of reservation of title by a seller of
goods” within the concept of “security interest” subject to the Article. Also included is a reservation
of title under a lease or consignment, but only where it is intended as security. To put the matter be-
yond debate, U.C.C. 1-201(37) expressly excludes leases and consignments not intended as security
from the definition of “security interest”.
588
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reservation as a security interest in the strict legal sense, notwithstanding its evident
security function.’
The U.C.C. drafters did not believe that conditional sales necessarily fell within
their functionalist definition of “security”. Instead, they found it necessary toformally
reconceptualize the conditional sale as a security agreement in the conventional sense.
This is made explicit in the definition of “security interest” in U.C.C. Article 1. Pursu-
ant to Article 1, any retention or reservation of ownership by a seller is limited in its
substantive effect to the reservation of a security interest, with the general property in
the goods passing to the buyer.’ The Canadian PPSA provisions do not effect an
equivalent express conversion. Nonetheless, PPSA analysts are of the unanimous
opinion that it is necessary to reconceptualize the arrangement so as to involve an
executed sale to the buyer followed by the grant back of a security interest to the seller
in order to rationalize the application of the legislation to conditional sales and analo-
gous title reservation security transactions. Pursuant to this approach, the seller is a
“secured creditor and not an owner of the collateral; the owner of the collateral is the
buyer “‘ and it is to the debtor’s undivided ownership interest that the security interest
attaches.”0
This reconceptualization of reservation of title security suggests not only that the
implications of formal property analysis had more power over the minds of the draft-
67 Under the conventional English common law view, “security” in the strict legal sense is limited to
interests in property created by grant from the debtor: the possessory pledge and the non-possessory
mortgage, lien, or charge. Interests that operate to reserve the creditor’s original ownership-hire-
purchase, chattel leases, and other title retention clauses-are not treated as security and, as such, are
not subject to regulation: see e.g. “World of Secured Transactions”, supra note 11 at 334. Before the
passage of the PPSAs, the majority of Canadian courts likewise persisted in treating the conditional
sale not as a security device on the analogy of an executed sale and mortgage back of the goods, but
as an “agreement to sell” in the sale of goods law sense of an agreement executory as to the passing of
the general property in the goods: see e.g. Ontario Law Reform Commission, Report on Sale of
Goods, (Toronto: Ministry of the Attorney General, 1979) vol. 1 at 43. The relationship between the
parties was characterized as one of divided ownership rather than security. The buyer’s possession and
any accumulated “equity” gave rise to an equitable beneficial ownership to that extent, but the seller’s
legal and beneficial ownership also persisted until the final payment had been made. This is not to say
that the common law cannot develop a more fully elaborated notion of beneficial ownership of the
equity of redemption sort. For signs of this from an (unreformed) jurisdiction, see Esanda Finance
Corporation v. Plessnig (1989), 63 A.LJ.R. 238 at 246, 166 C.L.R. 131 (H.C. Aus.), Brennan J. (re-
garding a hire-purchase arrangement).
U.C.C. 1-201(37): “[Tjhe retention or reservation of title by a seller of goods notwithstanding
shipment or delivery to the buyer (s. 2-401) is limited in effect to a reservation of a ‘security interest’.”
See also U.C.C. 2-401(1): “[A]ny retention or reservation by the seller of the title (property) in
goods shipped or delivered to the buyer is limited in effect to the reservation of a security interest.”
For judicial confirmation that the same principle applies to all “title-reservation” security devices, see
e.g. James Talcot, Inc. v. Franklin National Bank of Minneapolis, 194 N.W.2d 775, 292 Minn. 277
(S.C. 1972).
‘9 Alberta PPSA Handbook, supra note 6 at 117-18.
Ibid.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
ers than is commonly credited, but that they also believed their transformation was in
some ways artificial; the seller’s ownership was not wholly a security interest in sub-
stantive terms. Since it first emerged as a financing technique, the appropriate charac-
terization of conditional sales has perplexed courts and analysts; it continues to do so
outside the Article 9 and PPSA context as well.7’ The characterization of a true ex-
ecutory sale does not fully accommodate the security aspect of the transaction. After
all, both in a conditional sale and a chattel mortgage the creditor’s title to the collateral
is acquired via the mechanics of a sale transaction and, in both, title functions as secu-
rity. At the same time, the characterization of a pure security interest fails to allocate
sufficient jurisprudential significance to the different origin of title in the two transac-
tions. Title rests with the debtor where there is a mortgage and with the creditor where
there is a conditional sale. In the case of a mortgage, the transformation of the
debtor’s “equity of redemption” into a proprietary institution which is equivalent to
beneficial ownership 2 reflects the common law’s historical commitment to the preser-
“‘ In land law, opinion remains divided to this day on whether an instalment sale contract is an ex-
ecutory contract to sell or a “security device dressed up in contract clothes” (J.L. Westbrook, “A
Functional Analysis of Executory Contracts” (1989) 74 Minn. L. Rev. 227 at 257). See also Stern v.
McArthur (1988), 165 C.L.R. 489 (H.C. of Australia), online: Australasian Legal Information Insti-
tute
(date accessed: 16 August
1999), where the court awarded the defaulting purchaser relief against forfeiture of land subject to an
instalment seller’s reservation of title. Deane and Dawson JJ. held for the purchaser on the basis that
the contractual provision for determination on default operated as security for the price, making it ipso
facto unconscionable-by analogy to the mortgagee’s obligation to respect the mortgagor’s right of
redemption-for the vendors to insist on their strict contractual rights. Mason and Brennan JJ., how-
ever, rejected the security analogy as an excessive interference with the parties’ contractual intent as
expressed in their selection of an instalment contract rather than a mortgage as the financing vehicle.
They granted relief instead (as did Gaudron J.) on the basis that the “exceptional” circumstances of
the case justified a factual finding of unconscionability.
72 In its origins, the mortgage assumed the form of an outright conveyance of title to the collateral
subject to the express or implied understanding that the creditor would reconvey the property on re-
payment of the mortgage loan. However, what began as a remedial right in the debtor to call on equity
to compel the mortgagee to reconvey title on payment eventually evolved into a proprietary institution
(the “equity of redemption”). With that transformation, the mortgagee came to be seen as holding a
mere security interest against the debtor’s beneficial ownership, albeit one acquired by the mechanics
of a sale. See E. Sykes & S. Walker, The Law of Securities, 5th ed. (Sydney: Law Book, 1993) at 145-
147 on the common law legal mortgage of land, and critiquing this view in favour of one involving a
division of ownership between the parties. For a contemporary reversion to the personal or remedial
theory of redemption, see the dissenting opinion of Major J. in Alberta (Treasury Branches), supra
note 44 at 627ff., responding to the conventional view espoused by the majority that the debtor’s eq-
uity of redemption is the equivalent of residual beneficial ownership:
In determining whether the book debts, once assigned, are the “property” of the as-
signor or the assignee, the court must choose between two conflicting meanings of
“property”. One definition is the immediate legal title to what has been assigned and
the other is a potential interest enforceable only in equity to reacquire property which
has been assigned to another, contingent on successfully fulfilling the terms of the loan
agreement. … The plain and ordinary meaning of “property” is legal title and not a
contingent future equitable right to reacquire property at a future date. The very term
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vation of private property against alienation except by free consent, which is subject
only to the constraints of due process.” In the case of a conditional sale, that same first
principle augured for preservation of the seller’s original property in the goods against
alienation except in accordance with the terms (payment of the price) agreed between
the parties.’ From this perspective, the imposition of a security analysis on the seller’s
title constitutes a profound interference with the contractual bargain between the
parties.”
The fact is that neither characterization is wholly satisfactory. Under a true sales
law analysis, the seller’s ownership gives it a relatively free hand at the point of en-
forcement-the seller need not permit the defaulting buyer to redeem title, need not
resell after repossession, and need not account to the debtor for any surplus in the
event that it does not resell. This is in contrast to the elaborate protection which sur-
rounds the debtor when a secured party wishes to realize on collateral subject to a se-
curity interest.
If the default occurs early in the relationship, the remedy under a sales analysis is
both fair and efficient. Unlike the owner-debtor under a conventional secured loan, the
buyer under an instalment sales contract does not start out with a significant surplus
“equity of redemption” highlights the fact that property is not presently held by the as-
signor, but rather there is a limited right to reacquire property at a future date.
The conflict between the majority and the minority opinions in this case is discussed in Part I.1.,
below.
“See e.g. “Good Faith Purchase Idea”, supra note 11 at 606:
At all earlier times the common law had jealously protected the rights of ownership:
the true owner of property could not be despoiled or plundered or ousted by anyone
under any circumstances…. Consider the obstacles that the courts, having invented the
mortgagor’s equity of redemption in the seventeenth century, placed in the way of the
mortgagee who wanted to foreclose his mortgage on default.
‘, This thinking still dominates in Canadian law outside the PPSA context: see e.g. Kawai Canada
Music v. Encore Music (1993), 141 A.R. 284, 103 D.L.R. (4th) 126 (C.A.) [hereinafter Kawai Can-
ada Music], leave to appeal to S.C.C. refused [1993] 3 S.C.R. ix, 104 D.L.R. (4th) vii. At issue was
priority between a conditional seller and a chartered bank holding security in the debtor’s present and
after-acquired goods under s. 427 of the federal Bank Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-1. Under s. 427, the bank
acquires security in property of which the debtor “is the owner” or subsequently “becomes the
owner”. In ruling that a supplier who had reserved title to goods delivered to the debtor thereby
maintained priority over the bank, the court reasoned that to allow the bank’s after-acquired security
interest to capture the seller’s title would amount to the expropriation of another’s property without
consent, a conclusion to be resisted in the absence of explicit legislative language requiring this inter-
pretation.
” For this reason, even self-identified “functionalists” have difficulty with imposing a security label
on an unpaid vendor’s reservation of title. See Westbrook, supra note 71 at 241-42: Judicial recon-
ceptualization of the land instalment sales contract as a mortgage puts “many real estate sellers at risk
of a fundamental post hoc change in the bargain they made, a result that threatens an important and
legitimate type of real estate transaction.” Compare J.M. Moringiello, ‘A Mortgage By Any Other
Name: A Plea for the Uniform Treatment of Installment Land Contracts and Mortgages under the
Bankruptcy Code” (1996) 100 Dick. L. Rev. 733.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
equity in the collateral. So, a simple reclamation right merely restores the parties to
their pre-default economic position. In these circumstances, to require the seller to go
through the elaborate remedial process applicable to secured lenders results only in an
unnecessary delay. This delay potentially lowers the realizable value of the collateral.
This is a particular problem with personal property because it normally depreciates
rather quickly and enables an unscrupulous buyer to sell or dissipate it.
The solution arrived at under a sales analysis becomes less persuasive, however,
as the financing transaction evolves. With every payment, the buyer’s interest evolves
into something closer to ownership, and the potential prejudice from a forced repos-
session becomes correspondingly greater. This is particularly true if the seller has re-
served a contractual right to claim a deficiency on a resale of the collateral. The buyer
then loses its accumulated equity while it nevertheless remains liable for the price.
The pre-PPSA Conditional Sales Acts (“CSAs”) sought to accommodate the
needs of both parties with a hybrid enforcement regime. ‘ The buyer was awarded a
grace period to cure the default and complete the purchase. This was not a true equity
of redemption in the sense of vesting the buyer with the status of owner so as to entitle
the buyer to any surplus realized on a resale by the seller.” It did, however, give the
buyer protection against an unscrupulous seller seeking to take advantage of a minor
or technical default. The legislature also restricted the seller’s right to claim any defi-
ciency left owing on the price following a repossession and resale. Not only did this
have to be reserved expressly in the contract, but the seller’s right to the deficiency
was also made contingent upon the advance written notice of the sale and the state of
the accounts between the parties to the buyer.”
At the perfection and priority level, the CSAs took a similarly hybrid approach.
Sales law, to be sure, already recognized the need to protect subsequent transferees
76 On the pre-reform Canadian and United States CSAs, see e.g. Security Interests, supra note 2 at
62-85. See also R.M. Goode & J.S. Ziegel, Hire-Purchase and Conditional Sale Laiv: A Comparative
Survey of Commonwealth and American Law (London: British Institute of International and Com-
parative Law, 1965).
” See Delta Acceptance Corporation v. Redman, [1966] 2 O.R. 37,55 D.L.R. (2d) 481 (C.A.). Ca-
nadian courts were initially sympathetic to giving the buyer, by analogy to the chattel mortgagor, a
right to claim any surplus proceeds following a repossession and resale of the collateral: see C.C.
Motor Sales Ltd. v. Chan, [1926] S.C.R. 485, [1926] 3 D.L.R. 712. It was only when the focus of liti-
gation shifted to the seller’s right to claim a deficiency that the security analogy was rejected and the
conventional sales analysis reinstituted: see Humphrey Motors Ltd. v. Ells, [1935] S.C.R. 249, [1935]
2 D.L.R. 705 [hereinafter Humphrey Motors]. Since deficiencies, not surpluses, are the norm in the
personal property security context, it may be that the Canadian judiciary’s ultimate rejection of the se-
curity analogy was motivated more than incidentally by consumer protection policies.
78 Under the conventional sales analysis, the contract having been rescinded by the seller’s act of re-
possession, the buyer was seen as released from its countervailing obligation to pay the purchase price
unless the sale agreement expressly provided otherwise: see Humphrey Motors, ibid., but see Keneric
Tractor Sales v. Langille, [1987] 2 S.C.R. 440,43 D.L.R. (4th) 171. Even when a “deficiency” claim
had been reserved in the contract, the seller’s right to exercise it depended on strict compliance with
the prior notice requirements imposed by the CSAs: see Humphrey Motors, ibid.
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against the seller’s “secret lien”. This is evidenced in the fact that under the Sale of
Goods Acts, the buyer was empowered to give good title if the transferee took without
actual notice of the seller’s reservation of title.” This kind of all-or-nothing approach
made conditional sales a highly vulnerable form of financing. The buyer had the
power to destroy the seller’s ownership by violating the seller’s reservation of title.
Moreover, the protection afforded third parties was seen to be imperfect from a se-
cured credit perspective: subsequent buyers were protected, but not subsequent se-
cured parties, unless they took actual possession of the collateral as under a pledge or
the relatively unusual possessory chattel mortgage. ‘
In order to resolve these problems, the old CSAs mandated public registration of
conditional sales on pain of subordination to subsequent buyers, secured parties, and
the buyer’s general creditors. This solution afforded the seller protection from a
buyer’s misconduct while also ensuring public disclosure of the seller’s interest. At
the same time, mandatory registration did not completely eviscerate the historical su-
per-priority interest inherent in the seller’s retention of ownership. The unperfected
seller was only vulnerable to subsequent purchasers and mortgagees of the collateral
who took without actual notice. A prior secured party holding a general security inter-
est in the buyer’s present and after-acquired assets was not considered a subsequent
purchaser” unless the secured party extended new credit so as to come within the reli-
ance policy of the CSAs.” To this extent, the conditional seller’s reservation of owner-
ship afforded a super-priority even without registration.”
In reducing the seller’s status from an owner to a secured party, Article 9 and the
PPSAs dramatically change the position of both immediate and third parties. At the
enforcement level, the buyer-in-possession is apparently advantaged. This person now
has a full-fledged right of redemption and a corresponding right to any surplus on a
forced resale of the collateral. However, deficiencies and not surpluses are the norm in
realizations against goods and the buyer is now also subjected to an automatic liability
for any deficiency on the resale. This no longer needs to be reserved expressly in the
contract; the obligation automatically flows from the conversion of the buyer’s obli-
gation to pay the price into a secured debt. The seller’s remedial options are also more
restricted. Upon repossession, the seller cannot repossess the assets, put them back in
inventory, or dispose of them through other trade channels without having to further
“‘ See e.g. Sale of Goods Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S-I, s. 25(2).
‘0 The assumption seems to have been that where the contest was between successive non-
possessory interests, the seller’s ownership should trump the mortgagee’s “lesser” security interest.
” See e.g. WC. Fast Enterprises v. All-Power Sports (1973) Ltd. (1981), 29 A.R. 483, 126 D.L.R.
(3d) 27 (C.A.); and J.R. Auto Brokers v. Hillcrest Auto Lease, [1968] 2 O.R. 532, 70 D.L.R. (2d) 26
(H.C.J.).
8 See e.g. Bank of Nova Scotia v. Webb Valley Stock Farm (1988), 59 Alta. L.R. (2d) 97, 68 C.B.R.
(N.S.) 97 (C.A.).
” This was the pre-reform law in both the United States and common law Canada. See L.T. Garvin,
“Credit, Information, and Trust in the Law of Sales: The Credit Seller’s Right of Reclamation” (1996)
44 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 247 at 260; and C. Walsh, Comment (1983) 43 N.B.R. (2d) 186.
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account to the debtor and third parties. The only remedy is to sell. Notice of the sale
must be given to the debtor and any subordinate claimants of record, the sale itself
must be conducted in conformity with the standard of commercial reasonableness im-
posed on secured lenders, and the seller must render an accounting of the proceeds of
resale.
At the level of perfection and priority, the seller’s property interest in the goods-
reduced from ownership to security-no longer ipso facto protects the seller from
subordination to prior secured creditors. The historical priority advantage can be re-
gained by the supplier only if the special perfection requirements applicable to pur-
chase money security interests (“PMSI”) are satisfied. A PMSI is an interest in favour
of creditors whose extension of credit is intended to, and does in fact, facilitate the
debtor’s acquisition of the collateral.’ The distinction between PMSIs and general se-
curity interests is made for the purpose of awarding the purchase money financier a
special or “super-priority” analogous to that historically enjoyed by the conditional
seller and which has now been extended to third party institutional lenders.’ None-
theless, super-priority is no longer built into the very nature of the seller’s property
right. Consequently, non-compliance with the special perfection requirements for
PMSI status may even subordinate the seller’s claim to that of a non-reliant prior se-
cured party with a security interest in the debtor’s after-acquired goods.’
There is evidence of a growing discomfort with the wholesale relegation of the
real rights of sellers to the world of security. We see this in the recent resurgence of
support for expanding the post-delivery right of reclamation available to trade suppli-
Although Article 9 and the PPSAs offer the alternative of a voluntary exchange of the collateral
for the debt, this remedy likewise requires advance notice to the debtor and subordinate claimants of
record. Moreover, if any one of these objects to foreclosure, the seller must proceed with a sale, unless
a court confirms that the objection is unfounded. See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 61.
” See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid, s. 1: “purchase money security interest”
“See Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 258ff. This is an extension that English law has begun to
make as a matter of common law doctrine: see Abbey National Building Society v. Cann, [1991] 1
A.C. 56, [1990] 1 All E.R. 1085 (H.L.).
” In the early years of Article 9, some courts resisted this conclusion notwithstanding the clear in-
tention of the U.C.C.: see e.g. International Harvester Credit Corp. v. American National Bank of
Jacksonville, 296 So.2d 32 (Fla. S.C. 1974), online: WL (FL-CS) where the court ruled that an unper-
fected seller who had retained title to collateral retained priority over a prior secured creditor on the
theory that since the seller had retained ownership to the collateral, the bank could take a security in-
terest only to the extent of the buyer’s “equity” in the collateral; the contrary result would violate
“contractual constitutional requirements and equitable principles” (ibid. at 34). Similar arguments
continue to be made, and uniformly rejected (although not without regret), under the Canadian
PPSAs. See e.g. Haibeck v. No. 40 Taurus Ventures Ltd. (1991), 59 B.C.L.R. (2d) 229, 2 P.P.S.A.C.
(2d) 171 (S.C.(T.D.)) [hereinafter Haibeck] where it was held that, notwithstanding that the equities
favoured the seller who stood to lose the goods sold though it had not been paid, it was clear that un-
der the PPSAs a buyer acquires sufficient rights in goods sold subject to a reservation of title to allow
a prior security interest given by the buyer in its after-acquired goods to attach to the collateral as a
whole and take priority in the event that the seller fails to comply with the perfection requirements for
PMSI super-priority.
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ers against an insolvent purchaser under U.C.C. 2-702(2).’ Under the present ver-
sion of this section, the seller must demand repossession within ten days of delivery, a
time period that is generally impracticable unless bankruptcy has been declared. Nev-
ertheless, even when the debtor is bankrupt, the reclaiming seller’s remedy is ineffec-
tive against bonafide purchasers-a concept that includes the holder of a prior secu-
rity interest in the debtor’s after-acquired assets, whether or not there is evidence of
reliance in the form of a fresh advance against the new assets. ‘ Under the proposed
revision, the seller’s reclamation right would be strengthened so as to prevail at least
over a non-reliant prior all-assets financier. This is done by limiting protection to pur-
chasers who have offered new value.’
While the proposed revision to U.C.C. Article 2 is consistent with a sales law per-
spective on the seller’s status, it conflicts with the trend toward further expansion of
the rights of secured parties under Article 9. For this reason, its ultimate fate is still
very contentious.’
In Canadian law, a similar tension exists. A 1992 amendment to the federal Bank-
ruptcy and Insolvency Ac 2 awarded unpaid suppliers a thirty day statutory right to re-
possess goods delivered to a bankrupt buyer. ‘ The remedy is somewhat more gener-
ous than its U.C.C. equivalent. In the Canadian version, the suppliers’ right lasts for
thirty days and ranks ahead of all other statutory and contractual common law claims,
except those of bona fide purchasers for value who did not have notice of the repos-
session demand. Notwithstanding the willingness of the courts to extend the time de-
lay to avoid debtor-creditor collusion to “juice the trades”, the timing is still tight and
renders the protection somewhat illusory.’ Nevertheless, attempts to liberalize recla-
88 See e.g. Garvin, supra note 83 at 253-54: “Reclamation should be expanded-or, rather restored
to its pre-Code vigour-in order to promote the interests of credit, information and trust.”
” Ibid. at 273.
90 ibid, at 258.
“‘ Ibid, at 260. See also ibid. at 251: “The revisers of Article 9 have consistently sought to advance
the rights of secured parties over those of unsecured parties, including the trade creditors for whom
reclamation is potentially a significant remedy.”
92Supra note 61.
” Under s. 8 .1 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, ibid., a supplier may repossess goods from a
business which has gone into bankruptcy or receivership within thirty days of delivery, provided the
supplier presents a written demand for repossession within that same thirty day period, and provided
the goods are still in the possession of the purchaser or its trustee or receiver, are identifiable, are in
the same state, and have not yet been resold. The remedy is analogous to the unpaid seller’s right of
revendication under the Civil Code of Quebec. See generally R.A. Klotz, “Protection of Unpaid Sup-
pliers under the New Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act” (1993) 21 Can. Bus. L.J. 161 [hereinafter
“Unpaid Suppliers”]; and R.A. Klotz, “Unpaid Suppliers and Trade Creditors” in Insight Educational
Services & Globe and Mail (Firm), Who Takes Priority? (Toronto: Insight, 1996) 467 [hereinafter
“Trade Creditors”].
” ‘Trade Creditors”, ibid. at 473ff. The expression ‘Juicing the trades” refers to the perceived ten-
dency of a failing business to load up on inventory on the eve of insolvency in order to reduce the de-
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mation met with strong opposition in the last round of revisions to the Bankruptcy and
Insolvency Act, and reconsideration was put off for another five years.9
Even within the Article 9 and PPSA framework, there is an evident tension be-
tween a sales and a security perspective on the seller’s real rights. Consider first the
express exclusion under the Canadian PPSAs of an unpaid seller’s right under sales
law to ship goods under a bill of lading made out to the seller so as to reserve a right
of disposal as “security” against the buyer’s failure to pay the price at destination.’
This exclusion is typically explained on the basis that there is no need to invoke the
PPSA perfection and priority regime to protect third parties where the buyer has not
yet taken physical delivery.’ However, this cannot be the entire explanation, since the
exclusion also operates to subject the seller and the buyer to the default rights and
remedies of sales law as opposed to secured lending law. Implicit in this latter aspect
of the exclusion is recognition that a buyer who has paid nothing on the price is not an
owner of the collateral in any real sense so as to need the protection of the restrictions
imposed on a creditor enforcing a security interest in the debtor’s property.
Consider next the appropriate resolution of a priority contest between competing
supplier and lender PMSIs in the same item of collateral. The functional identity of
sale and loan credit suggests that they should simply rank equally. While this is the
proposed rule under Article 9,’ the Canadian PPSAs award priority to the supplier.”
This solution is variously explained on the basis that lenders are more likely to guard
ficiency claim of its secured creditor against individuals related to the company who have personally
guaranteed the secured debt. See “Unpaid Suppliers”, ibid. at 162-63:
[S]uppliers frequently fall prey to a form of financial abuse known as “juicing the
trades”. A failing business, facing receivership and a consequent shortfall to the bank,
may substantially increase its stock of inventory shortly before bankruptcy or receiver-
ship. The effect is to increase the bank’s recovery under its security, thereby minimiz-
ing the guarantors’ exposure for a shortfall, all at the expense of the trade suppliers.
While in extreme cases this conduct may amount to provable fraud, the suppliers usu-
ally have no remedy.
9′ See F Bennett, “Bill C-5: An Act to Amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act’ in Banking,
PPSA, Bankruptcy Conference Papers (New Brunswick, C.L.E., 15-16 November 1996) 15. Bill C-5
does little more than eliminate some of the worst inconsistencies between the rights of unpaid suppli-
ers in the event of a reorganization under the federal Company Creditors Arrangement Act, R.S.C.
1985, c. C-36 as opposed to the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
96 The drafting technique is more cumbersome under the Ontario PPSA than the other PPSAs.
Compare Ontario PPSA, supra note 6, s. 4(2) (cross-reference to inapplicability of s. 20(2) of the Sale
of Goods Act, supra note 79) and New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 1: “security interest” (ex-
press general exclusion in para. (a) of the definition). See also Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at
267-68; and Barclays Business Credit v. Fletcher Challenge Canada (1993), 13 O.R. (3d) 118, 5
P.P.S.A.C. (2d) 105 (Gen. Div.).
9’Ziegel & Denomme, ibid at 79-82.
98An Introduction, supra note 6 at 31.
” See R.E. Scott, “The Politics of Article 9” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 1783 at 1834, n. 157.
100 See e.g. Ontario PPSA, supra note 6, s. 33(3) which is discussed by Ziegel & Denomme, supra
note 6 at 267-68.
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against (by prior searching), and are better positioned (through volume lending) to ab-
sorb and redistribute losses flowing from a reduction in their priority than suppliers
for whom the credit sale is central to their primary business.”‘ Whether or not this rep-
resents sensible policy, what is significant for present purposes is that the PPSA solu-
tion is readily intelligible in terms of the priority advantage inherent in title reserva-
tion security under a formal property analysis.
The final and more telling illustration of Article 9’s residual preference for title-
reservation security is the exemption afforded to suppliers of consumer goods, in
contrast to third party purchase money financiers, from the need to register in order to
maintain super-priority over both secured and general creditors.”2 This feature of Arti-
cle 9 has not been carried over to the Canadian PPSAs even though both regimes draw
a sharp distinction between PMSIs in inventory and non-inventory collateral. Finan-
ciers of non-inventory collateral-i.e., capital equipment and, in the case of the Cana-
dian PPSAs, consumer goods-enjoy an “automatic” super-priority over a prior per-
fected secured lender so long as registration is effected within the prescribed time pe-
riod after the debtor takes possession of the collateral.”3 In the case of a PMSI cover-
ing inventory collateral, the requirements for super-priority are more onerous. The in-
ventory financier must not only register, but must also give advance written notice to
earlier perfected secured parties before the debtor obtains possession of the collat-
eral.” Non-compliance means that the PMSI priority reverts to the ordinary first-in-
time ranking.
The secured parties entitled to advance notice of an inventory PMSI are those
with a perfected security interest in after-acquired assets of the same kind, and who
might otherwise extend a fresh advance against the security of the incoming inventory
in ignorance of the intervening PMSI. The same risk also presents itself in the case of
a later PMSI taken in specific goods, especially if the item is a particularly valuable
piece of capital equipment. Yet, in this instance, the PMSI holder acquires an auto-
matic super-priority against the first lender provided only that registration is effected
within the prescribed grace period after delivery. The onus is on the first lender to
monitor the filings and wait out the prescribed period before relying on the new col-
lateral to secure a fresh advance.
A functionalist might seek to justify the stronger priority status afforded to PMSIs
in specific assets on the basis of risk alteration and efficiency with regard to searching
‘ Ziegel & Denomme, ibid.
102 U.C.C. 9-302(1)(d), 9-307(2), discussed by White & Summers, supra note 35 at 22-5, 22-6,
24-15.
“0’U.C.C. 9-312(4) (ten day grace period).
” H. Kanda & S. Levmore, “Explaining Creditor Priorities” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 2103 at 2139:
“The [Article 9 PMSI priority] rules intimate that the acquisition of new inventory and its associated
debt is more threatening to earlier creditors than the debt-financing of new equipment but that debt
tied to new inventory is still less threatening than new money unlinked to particular assets”
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the records.'”‘ Risk alteration refers to the propensity of debtors to engage in riskier
behaviour as their ratio of assets to debt is diminished. A first-in-time priority rule re-
sponds to the risk alteration problem by fostering early lending and discouraging later
borrowings. Its disadvantage is that, as the debtor’s business evolves, later creditors,
notably later purchase money financiers, may prove to be more informed lenders or
more efficient decision makers.
If the later PMSI is restricted to specific non-inventory assets, the risk alteration
problem is relatively minimal. Although the debtor has taken on a new debt, the new
debt is counterbalanced by the acquisition of a new asset which, unlike inventory, is
meant to remain within the estate and which may well be value enhancing. Even if it
is not value enhancing, the impact on the prior creditor is relatively slight. In other
words, not only is the later lender’s super-priority restricted to the specific asset, but
the prior creditor, presumably aware of the risk, can protect its interest by searching
the registry before making fresh advances against specific assets.
Where the new assets consist of inventory, the first-in-time lender is typically the
debtor’s principal source of working capital; a significant component of this working
capital may be dedicated to fund the acquisition of inventory on a revolving credit ba-
sis. In this case, the burden of having to continually monitor the records for interven-
ing inventory PMSIs is all but infeasible. Placing the burden of notice on the subse-
quent creditor, therefore, ensures that the prior creditor will have an opportunity to re-
act quickly to the increased risk posed by the new debt in order to avoid prejudicial
reliance.
Whatever the merits of these explanations, what is significant for our purposes is
the close identity between the Article 9 and PPSA rules on the one hand, and the rules
arrived at under a formal property analysis on the other. Thus, pre-PPSA law drew a
similar distinction between the priority status of suppliers of specific goods and in-
ventory. Reservation of ownership as a security device, and the automatic super-
priority associated with ownership, was available only to the unpaid supplier of spe-
cifically identified goods already delivered to the buyer.'” A supplier who wished to
take security in inventory to be supplied to the buyer on an ongoing basis was forced
to take a floating charge, with priority as against a prior floating interest in inventory
determined on a first-in-time basis.'” The subsequent inventory supplier’s super-
priority therefore depended upon the willingness of the prior lender to subordinate its
first-in-time priority. The practical result under Article 9 and the PPSAs is not very
105 Ibid.
” This was because the CSAs did not contemplate or allow the filing of a conditional sales contract
covering after-acquired goods. It was thus impossible for a supplier to effectively reserve title in, for
example, all inventory now or hereinafter delivered to the dealer. Rather, a new conditional sales con-
tract had to be executed and filed with each fresh delivery of inventory to the dealer, a process that
was infeasible for all but big ticket items of inventory where the profit margin and relatively slow
turnover might warrant the high transaction costs of compliance.
‘o See Re Benjamin Cope & Sons Ltd, [1914] 1 Ch. 800, 83 L.J. Ch. 699.
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different. Although a subsequent inventory financier can, in theory, acquire super-
priority under the PPSA simply by giving unilateral notice, the security agreement
between the prior lender and the debtor will often contain a term prohibiting the
debtor from granting any further security interests without obtaining the prior lender’s
permission. Unless the debtor can obtain the prior lender’s consent to subordinate its
claim, there exists a risk that the first loan will be called.
The distinction between specific assets and inventory financing is also reflected in
the Article 9 and PPSA rules governing priority in the proceeds of a disposition of the
collateral. As a general rule, the purchase money financier’s super-priority extends
primafacie to proceeds in all regimes. However, when it comes to the most common
form of proceeds-accounts (and the proceeds of accounts)-Article 9 and the west-
ern Canadian PPSAs subordinate the PMSI to a prior-registered security interest taken
in the accounts as original collateral for new value. This is implicit recognition of the
weaker case for conferring super-priority once the purchase money financier seeks to
transfer the security interest from specific assets into the debtor’s larger liquid estate.'”
C. Leases and Security
The drafters’ recharacterization of conditional sales as security indicates that the
intention is to transfer residual beneficial title in the collateral to the debtor on satis-
faction of the secured obligation that converts a reservation of title agreement into a
security device under Article 9 and the PPSAs. This kind of formalistic analysis is
helpful in resolving one of the most intensively litigated issues under Article 9, i.e.,
the distinction between a true lease and a secured transaction in the form of a lease.'”
The confused state of the jurisprudence on the “true lease/security lease” distinc-
tion is not surprising in view of the drafters’ adoption of functionalism as the only
distinguishing criterion.”‘ From a functionalist perspective, there is little to distinguish
‘” An htroduction, supra note 6 at 162-63. The exceptions are the Ontario and Atlantic PPSAs un-
der which the inventory financier’s super-priority survives over the accounts. However, except in On-
tario, the inventory supplier is required to give advance notice of its claim on the accounts to a prior
accounts financier, so that the difference in practical result is minimal. Note too that while the interest
of a bank taking s. 427 Bank Act security in inventory is thought to extend by necessary implication
into the proceeds of sale of the inventory, the bank’s implied tracing rights terminate once the pro-
ceeds reach the hands of a bonafide purchaser for value without notice and are subject to equitable
set-off: see Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v. Kernel Farms Ltd. (1982), 138 D.L.R. (3d) 128,
43 C.B.R. (N.S.) 72 (Ont. H.C.L), aff’d (1984), 45 O.R. (2d) 88, 6 D.L.R. (4th) 384 (C.A.) [hereinaf-
ter Kernel Farnns]; and Mercantile Bank of Canada v. Leon’s Furniture (1992), 11 O.R. (3d) 713, 98
D.L.R. (4th) 449 (C.A.) [hereinafter Mercantile Bank].
” This is the case notwithstanding the opportunity to avoid a characterization dispute by making an
informational or a caution filing pursuant to U.C.C. 9-408.
“0 C. Cooper, “Identifying a Personal Property Lease under the UCC” (1988) 49 Ohio St. L.J. 195
at 199-200:
[I]f there is a problem in understanding what is a sale, lease, or a security interest, it is
not because these are all really the same transaction, but because the basis in the law
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the two leases. After all, a lease operates as a form of purchase money financing to the
extent that it allows a lessee who lacks the wherewithal to buy the leased goods to
nonetheless obtain their possession and use. The economic function of the transaction
from the point of view of the lessor and the purchase money secured party is similar:
both obtain the right to a stream of payments during the currency of the transaction
and both can claim an in rem right to priority as against other creditors in the event of
insolvency.”‘
In contrast to functionalism, formal title analysis offers a reasonably clear basis
for distinction.”2 In a true lease, the residual value remains in the lessor, and the lessor
is entitled to the unconditional return of that residual value on the conclusion of the
term of the lease. In a security lease, on the other hand, the debtor obtains the benefit
(and suffers the burden) associated with the residual economic value in the collateral.
The definition of “security interest” in U.C.C. 1-120(37) was substantially revised in
1987 in order to clarify this point. The new version confirms the paramount relevance
of the location of residual title (in the substantive sense of the residual economic
value) in drawing the lease/security distinction; however, the message has not been
received uniformly by the courts. Both true leases and security leases involve a sepa-
ration of possession and property rights and, as such, raise a common ostensible own-
ership problem. In order to bring into play the publicity requirements applicable to se-
curity leases, there is an evident judicial temptation to continue subsuming true leases
within the security rubric. This tendency is particularly strong under Article 9 and the
Ontario PPSA”‘ but is far less pronounced under the other Canadian PPSAs, all of
for distinguishing among them has become hopelessly blurred. … Although the blame
for this confusion may be placed on the concepts themselves, it seems that the respon-
sibility is more logically placed on the minimal guidance provided by the current ver-
sion [pre-1987] of the U.C.C.
. For functionalist arguments in favour of the identity of leases and security, see e.g. M. Howard,
“Equipment Lessors and Secured Parties in Bankruptcy: An Argument For Coherence” (1991) 48
Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 253 at 279-83; and J.D. Ayer, “On the Vacuity of the Sale/Lease Distinction”
(1983) 68 Iowa L. Rev. 667.
1 Cooper, supra note 110.
“, See e.g. 1993 Law of Secured Transactions, supra note 64 at 1.35:
Under the new version of 1-201(37), the question is: Will the lessee enjoy possession
and use of the goods for their entire economic life[?] … If so, the lease is a disguised
security interest. The focus is on the economic realities of the transaction: Do the terms
of the lease create an irresistible economic impulse on the lessee to become the owner,
thereby suggesting that the lessor has no meaningful residual interest? That is the bot-
tom line.
” For how the publicity concern has influenced where the line between security and non-security
leases is drawn under the Ontario PPSA, see Adelaide Capital Corp. v. Integrated Transportation Fi-
nance (1994), 111 D.L.R. (4th) 493, 23 C.B.R. (3d) 289 (Ont. Gen. Div.), cogently criticized in this
respect by J.S. Ziegel, “Commentaries-Characterization of Equipment Leases and Other PPSA
Problems” (1994) 24 Can. Bus. L.J. 141.
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which deem true leases for a term in excess of one year to be security interests for the
purposes of perfection and priority, but not for enforcement.”‘
Deeming true leases to be security interests lessens the pressure to resolve the
common publicity concern underpinning both forms via an expansive reading of the
concept of security.”‘ However, this has generated its own conceptual problems. At is-
sue in Re Giffen,”‘ recently decided by the Supreme Court of Canada, was the effect
of the failure to register a lease under the British Columbia PPSA on the lessor’s real
rights against the insolvent lessee’s trustee in bankruptcy. The intended effect under
the PPSA was abundantly clear: under section 20, an unperfected security interest,
deemed by section 1 to include the interest of a lessor under a true lease for a term of
more than one year, is ineffective against the debtor’s trustee in bankruptcy.”8 The les-
sor argued that its failure to file was insufficient to vest its residual title in the trustee,
whose interest is limited by federal bankruptcy law to property belonging to the bank-
rupt debtor.”‘ Reversing the trial court, the British Columbia Court of Appeal agreed
with the lessor, even though it acknowledged that the scope of a bankrupt debtor’s
estate is defined principally by reference to provincial property law. The Court of Ap-
peal held that nowhere did the PPSA effect an express transfer of the lessor’s residual
ownership thereby making the leased goods the property of the bankrupt lessee.”
Consequently, the lessor was entitled to the return of its property from the trustee.
“‘ On this feature of Canadian PPSA law, see J.S. Ziegel & R.C.C. Cuming, Commercial and Con-
suiner Transactions: Cases, Text and Materials, 3d ed. (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 1995) vol. 3 at
63-64.
“‘ But the “true lease/security lease” distinction remains relevant at the enforcement level. True
leases are excluded from the PPSA default enforcement regime: see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra
note 6, s. 55(1)(a). The remedial differences between lease and security can be profound in those
PPSA jurisdictions which afford special protection to consumer debtors: see British Columbia PPSA,
supra note 6, s. 58(3) which bars a secured party from enforcing a security interest in consumer goods
where the buyer has paid at least two thirds of the total secured obligation. The British Columbia
PPSA also incorporates a “seize or sue” limitation on a secured party’s enforcement rights against
consumer goods; i.e., if the secured party elects to sue the debtor personally on the secured debt, it
thereby foregoes its real rights against the collateral. In such cases, the “true lease/security lease” dis-
tinction becomes critical in the event that the lessee is insolvent. If the lease is a true lease, the goods
do not form part of the bankrupt’s estate (assuming the lease is duly perfected) and the lessor can re-
cover the goods from the lessee’s trustee in bankruptcy. But if the lease is a security lease and the les-
sor has waived its real rights by suing the lessee personally for the rental payments, its status in the
bankruptcy distribution is reduced to that of a mere unsecured creditor: see e.g. Re Bronson (1996), 18
B.C.L.R. (3d) 195, 39 C.B.R. (3d) 33 (S.C.(A.D.)).
“‘ (1996), 131 D.L.R. (4th) 453, 16 B.C.L.R. (3d) 29 (C.A.), rev’d [1998] 1 S.C.R. 91, 155 D.L.R.
(4th) 332 [hereinafter cited to S.C.R.].
“‘ The Court seems to have assumed that it was dealing with a true lease, not a security lease. There
is reason to question that assumption, but for the purposes of this analysis, we will assume it is accu-
rate.
Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, supra note 61, s. 67(I)(a).
22 This conceptual problem does not arise where the deemed security interest is created by grant
from the debtor-as in an outright sale of accounts-rather than by reservation of ownership by the
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The Court of Appeal’s reading of the PPSA has been uniformly criticized for be-
ing highly formalistic.’21 After all, Canadian legislative precedent for the imposition of
filing requirements on true leases pre-dates the PPSAs by many years; the registration
provisions of the old CSAs-still in force in some Atlantic provinces-likewise ex-
tended to both conditional sales and true leases with an option to purchase.’ 2 Unless
filed, the lessor’s residual title was declared void as against subsequent purchasers,
mortgagees, and the lessee’s creditors, including the lessee’s trustee in bankruptcy in
its representative capacity.
As a matter of statutory interpretation, we agree that the analysis of the Court of
Appeal in Re Giffen is wrong as the Supreme Court of Canada so held. It is true that
the CSAs, unlike the PPSAs, expressly deemed the lessee under an unfiled lease to be
the owner of the goods as against the classes of third parties protected by the filing re-
quirement, including the lessee’s trustee in bankruptcy.'” The same conclusion is in-
herent in the operation of the PPSA attachment and priority structure, as the Supreme
Court recognized. Although this did not form part of the Supreme Court’s reasoning,
creditor. Since the PPSA makes an unfiled sale of accounts ineffective against the trustee, it is as
though the sale never took place and the accounts never left the bankrupt’s estate: see Agent’s Equity,
supra note 59.
.2, See J.S. Ziegel, “Equipment Leases and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act: Re Giffen” (1996)
27 Can. Bus. L.J. 296 (written after the B.C.C.A. decision); R.C.C. Cuming & T. Buckwold, “The
Personal Property Security Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act: Two Solitudes or Comple-
mentary Systems” (1996) 12 B.F.L.R. 467; and J.R. Williamson, Case Comment on Re Giffen (1997)
40 C.B.R. (3d) 280. The second of these three articles was cited and quoted from extensively in the
Supreme Court.
’22 See e.g. Conditional Sales Act, R.S.N.S. 1989, c. 84, s. 2(1)(b): “[c]onditional sale means … (ii)
any contract for the hiring of goods by which it is agreed that the hirer shall become, or have the op-
tion of becoming, the owner of the goods upon full compliance with the terms of the contract” In
Mitsui & Co. (Canada Ltd.) v. Royal Bank of Canada, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 187, 123 D.L.R. (4th) 449, the
Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that this wording did not limit the scope of the registration pro-
visions of the Nova Scotia Act, first enacted in 1930, to “disguised conditional sales agreements”–
i.e., lease-option agreements-where it is plain that the lease payments in reality are going toward the
purchase of the leased goods. Rather, the legislative history of the United States Uniform Conditional
Sales Act (1922), from which the Nova Scotia version was derived, indicated that the drafters meant
to include even true leases with an option to purchase, an earlier version based on a United States
model which would have limited the scope of the acts to “disguised conditional sales agreements”
having been dropped by the Uniformity Commissioners in the final version.
‘ See e.g. Nova Scotia Conditional Sales Act, ibid., s. 3:
After possession of goods has been delivered to a buyer under a conditional sale [de-
fined in s. 2(1)(b) to include the interest of a true lessor under a lease with an option to
purchase], every provision contained therein whereby the property in the goods re-
mains in the seller shall be void as against
(a) subsequent purchasers or mortgagees [of the goods] …
(b) creditors of the buyer … [including] a trustee under the Bankruptcy Act, (Canada)
… and the buyer shall, notwithstanding such provision, be deemed the owner of the
goods, unless the requirements of this Act are complied with [emphasis added].
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we believe that this is most clearly seen in the PPSA and Article 9 requirement that a
debtor, including a deemed debtor, need only have “rights in the collateral”‘ 4 in order
for a security interest to attach. The term “rights in the collateral” is sometimes under-
stood as an acknowledgment of the continuing pro tanto vitality of the common law
theory of derivative property rights (nemo dat quod non habet'”) in the PPSA and, as
such, as limiting the quantum of the property rights to which a competing creditor’s
interest can attach to those held by the debtor.’6 However, on this interpretation, a
competing creditor’s interest in collateral to which a secured creditor, deemed or oth-
erwise, had retained ownership would attach only to the debtor’s possessory rights
and any accumulated equity. This cannot be correct. The internal logic of the Article 9
and PPSA priority regime is premised on a rejection of derivative title theory in favour
of registration as the principal mechanism for ranking priority both among secured
creditors and as between the secured creditor and the debtor’s general creditors in-
cluding the trustee in bankruptcy.’27 To give effect to this intent, “rights in the collat-
eral” must be understood as requiring a mere bare right to possession or a power to
convey a greater interest than has the debtor,'” a point confirmed in PPSA jurispru-
12, U.C.C. 9-203(1)(c). For the equivalent PPSA provision, see e.g. Ontario PPSA, supra note 6, s.
I I(2)(c).
“2i One who has not cannot give.
6 See e.g. Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 114:
Read literally, [the PPSA requirement that the debtor have rights in the collateral]
merely states the obvious: if the debtor has no rights in the collateral, there is nothing
for him to convey to the secured party. Neno dat quod non habet. Likewise, if the
debtor has only a limited interest, falling short of ownership, that is all he can convey to
the secured party.
See also ibid at 115: “[The drafters’ use of the term ‘rights in the collateral’] was not intended to
enlarge the debtor’s rights in the collateral:’ The nemo dat theory of “rights in the collateral” is also
widely accepted among Article 9 analysts: see e.g. L.J. Rusch, “The Article 9 Filing System: Why a
Race Recording Model is Unworkable” (1995) 79 Minn. L. Rev. 565 at 566-69; M. Livingston,
“Certainty, Efficiency, and Realism: Rights in the Collateral under Article 9 of the Uniform Commer-
cial Code” (1994) 73 N.C. L. Rev. 115 at 119-120; and Tabac, supra note 18 at 412, n. 24. Compare
Board, supra note 20 at 1029ff.
‘” The difference is illustrated by comparing the PPSA perfection-driven priority regime with that
applicable to security taken by the chartered banks under s. 427 of the Bank Act, supra note 74. The
latter regime is premised on traditional derivative title ranking principles. Under s. 427, failure to file
subordinates the bank only to “subsequent” mortgagees and purchasers. Moreover, the bank acquires
an effective security interest only in property of which the debtor “is the owner” or subsequently “be-
comes the owner”: see e.g. Kawai Canada Music, supra note 74, where it was held that, because the
Bank Act does not inflate the bank’s rights beyond what the debtor has to give, and because what the
debtor has to give is determined exclusively by its contract with its transferor, a supplier who has re-
served title to goods delivered to the debtor maintains priority over a bank which has taken s. 427 se-
curity notwithstanding the absence of any express provision for PMSI super-priority in the Bank Act.
To the same effect, see Bank of Nova Scotia v. International Credit Corp. of Canada (1990), 74 O.R.
(2d) 738, 73 D.L.R. (4th) 385 (C.A.); and Rogerson Lumber Co. v. Four Seasons Chalet Ltd. (1980),
29 O.R. (2d) 193, 12 B.L.R. 93 (C.A.).
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dence'” and expressly stated in some of the more recent PPSAs.'” On this interpreta-
tion, ostensible ownership-in the radical sense of bare possession or control of the
collateral-has effectively replaced derivative title for the purposes of determining the
scope of the secured debtor’s estate at the priority level.”‘ Thus, by the very act of
deeming a true lease to be a PPSA security interest, ownership in the leased assets is
effectively vested in the lessee as against the lessee’s secured creditors and trustee in
bankruptcy.
We suspect, however, that a deeper concern was underlying the Court of Appeal’s
reversion to formalism. The Court’s concern, we believe, was the perceived unfairness
of extending a secured lending perfection and priority regime to true owners. The Su-
preme Court did not deal with this point. Its analysis in this respect was as formalistic
“‘ This alternative mode of analysis (i.e., rights in the collateral includes a contingent power to
transfer better property rights than one has) is necessary to rationalize the operation of the Article 9
and PPSA first-to-register priority rules in the case where an assignor who has sold its accounts out-
right makes a second assignment to an assignee who registers first (since the assignor in such a case
may not even have retained a right to collect or otherwise control the accounts after the first assign-
ment). See also supra note 49.
” See e.g. Marcel Equipment Ltd. v. Equipements Benoit D’Amours et Fils Inc. (1995), 9 EES.A.C.
(2d) 31 (Ont. Gen. Div.), online: QL (OJ). Here, a conditional seller had failed to register in time to
qualify for super-priority over a prior security interest in the buyer’s after-acquired goods. The seller
argued that because it had reserved title to the goods, the competing security interest could attach at
most to the buyer’s right of possession and any accumulated “equity”. In rejecting that argument, the
Court reasoned that the term “rights in the collateral” was sufficiently broad to encompass the posses-
sory and equitable rights of a conditional buyer, with the result that the compqting security interest
attached to the collateral as a whole. To the same effect, see Euroclean Canada v. Forest Glade In-
vestments (1985), 49 O.R. (2d) 769, 16 D.L.R. (4th) 289 (C.A.); and Haibeck, supra note 87. For re-
cent confirmation that the same reasoning applies to deemed security interests in the form of a true
lease, see Sprung Instant Structures v. Caswan Environmental Services, [1997] 5 W.W.R. 280, 47
Alta. L.R. (3d) 356 (Q.B.) [hereinafter Sprung] where it was held that, in a PPSA regime, the rule of
nemo dat no longer dominates and one need not be an “owner” to give an effective security interest in
collateral. Since true leases are deemed to be security interests under the Alberta PPSA, the priority
status of the lessor against the lessee’s “other” secured creditors and bankruptcy trustee is likewise
governed by the PPSA priority and registration rules, and not by the common law rule of nemo dat.
See also Otto 7imm, supra note 22, where possession under a conditional sales contract or even a
simple bailment gives sufficient “rights in the collateral” for attachment.
30 Including the British Columbia PPSA, supra note 6, s. 12:
‘
For the purposes of [satisfying the requirement that the debtor have rights in the collat-
eral], a lessee under a lease for a term of more than one year or a consignee under a
commercial consignment has rights in the goods when the lessee or consignee obtains
possession of them under the lease or consignment.
” For recent judicial confirmation, see Sprung, supra note 129. For a historical and comparative
account of the transformation of the basis of ownership in personal property from derivative title to
the ostensible ownership thesis implicit in the “rights in the collateral” attachment principle embraced
by Article 9 and the PPSAs, see B. Kozolchyk, “Transfer of Personal Property by a Nonowner. Its
Future in Light of its Past” (1987) 61 Tul. L. Rev. 1453.
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as that of the Court of Appeal.”‘ Had the Supreme Court gone into the issue of per-
ceived unfairness, we suggest that the analysis might have been as follows. It is one
thing to require secured creditors to register on pain of subordination to the debtor’s
other creditors since secured credit is after all an exception to the normal principle of
equal ranking among creditors; however, it is quite another thing to allow a debtor’s
non-reliant creditors to sweep up property belonging to a third party.”‘ The PPSAs
implicitly recognize that the lessor’s residual ownership interest is entitled to a higher
quality of protection since they deem a true lease to be a PMSI which qualifies for the
same purchase money super-priority enjoyed by an unpaid vendor who has reserved a
security interest. However, as with any PMSI in non-inventory goods, super-priority is
conferred on the lessor’s interest only if it is perfected within ten days of delivery of
the leased goods to the lessee. Otherwise, the lessor’s interest is swept into the dragnet
of a prior security interest in the lessee’s after-acquired goods, or rendered part of the
lessee’s estate for the purposes of a bankruptcy administration or judgment enforce-
ment lien.”‘
It might be said that the lessor has only itself to blame for failing to publicize its
non-possessory title. This, however, begs the question of whether the priority reper-
cussions of non-compliance should be as severe for owners-who never agreed to
convey their residual title and whose ownership interest by definition is apt to be of
more substantial value-as for the holder of a security interest in another’s property
contingent on default. Of course, to the extent that the priority consequences of a fail-
ure to file differ between true and security leases, the incentive to litigate characteri-
zation will remain, thereby eliminating a major advantage of bringing both types of
leases within the same filing structure.'” Viewed in this light, a more nuanced resolu-
tion of the issue in Re Giffen might have turned instead on the level of prejudice to
creditors occasioned by the scope of the collateral subject to title reservation. This
1 The closest the Supreme Court comes to acknowledging the point is in the reference to the legis-
lature’s resolution of competing policy concerns in the PPSA’s text: see Re Giffen, supra note 117 at
115.
‘ It is this concern that has thus far doomed proposals to extend the Article 9 filing regime to cover
true leases. See C.W. Mooney, “The Mystery and Myth of ‘Ostensible Ownership’ and Article 9 Fil-
ing: A Critique of Proposals to Extend Filing Requirements to Leases” (1988) 39 Ala. L. Rev. 683 at
706-24. Compare D.G. Baird & T.H. Jackson, “Possession and Ownership: An Examination of the
Scope of Article 9″ (1982) 35 Stan. L. Rev. 175, arguing that the holders of all non-possessory prop-
erty interests, whether ownership or security, should be under the same obligation to cure the problem
of ostensible ownership created by their delivery of possession of assets to another. It is no answer to
this concern that the creditors had the opportunity, prior to bankruptcy supervening by reducing their
claims to judgment and gaining execution, to gain priority over the unperfected security interest, and
after bankruptcy, the trustee, as their representative, should be able to assert a form of transmuted exe-
cution. This, in essence, appears to be the Supreme Court’s answer to the point in the text. See Re
Giffen, ibid. at 110.
” See Sprung, supra note 129.
“J.D. Honnold, S.L. Harris & C.W Mooney, Security Interests in Personal Property, 2d ed.
(Westbury N.Y.: Foundation, 1992) at 244-45.
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distinction has already been touched upon in this article in the context of the differ-
ences between inventory and non-inventory purchase money financing. The distinc-
tion will also be canvassed in the context of deemed security and the difference be-
tween equipment leases and commercial consignments.
D. Consignments and Security
As with leases, Article 9 and the PPSAs distinguish a true connercial consign-
ment from its security counterpart according to whether the agreement functions to
secure payment or the performance of an obligation. Once again, a functional analysis
raises more questions than it answers. A true consignment is simply a bailment of
goods in which the bailee, for a commission, acts as the consignor’s agent to sell the
goods. As such, it functions as a form of purchase money inventory financing as it
thereby enables a retailer without up-front cash to nonetheless acquire stock and earn
a profit-its agency commission-on its resale. Once again, a formal title analysis
provides for a more helpful characterization. Is the consignee ultimately intended to
acquire the benefit or burden of ownership? For instance, at the end of the day must
the consignee pay for the goods even if they have not been sold?3′ Only in cases of
such potential acquisition does the consignment qualify as security device, and then
only by analogy to Article 9’s reconceptualization and relocation of the unpaid ven-
dor’s reservation of title within the general security rubric.
Nonetheless, the consignment/security distinction has not occasioned the same
level of litigation and debate as the lease/security distinction. While this may be a re-
sult of the less widespread use of consignments in commerce, we suspect that there
136 See e.g. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v. A.K. Construction (1988) Ltd. (1996), 39 Alta.
L.R. (3d) 216, 11 P.S.A.C. (2d) 280 (Q.B.) [hereinafter A.K Construction]. At issue was priority
between two secured parties over the proceeds of sale of certain mobile equipment (two trenchers).
Although both security interests had been taken and registered under the Alberta PPSA, supra note 6,
perfection lapses under s. 7(3) if the debtor relocates or “transfers an interest in the collateral to a per-
son located in another jurisdiction” unless the security interest is re-perfected in the other jurisdiction
within a prescribed grace period. At issue was whether the debtor’s delivery of the trenchers to a Min-
nesota dealer for resale on an agency-consignment basis constituted a “transfer of an interest in the
collateral” within the meaning of s. 7(3) so as to trigger the re-perfection obligation in s. 7(2). If so,
the priorities would be reversed. Although both security interests had been re-filed in Minnesota, the
holder of the first-registered security interest in Alberta had re-filed in Minnesota outside the pre-
scribed grace period. The Court, having in mind the policy objectives of s. 7(2) (protection of reliant
transferees at the new location), held that the term “transfer” should be interpreted to require more
than the transfer of a bare right of possession. Consequently, the re-perfection obligation was trig-
gered only in the case of a security consignment, i.e., one under which title or ownership was intended
to pass to the consignee and not merely through the consignee as agent for sale. One can quarrel with
the court’s interpretation of the meaning of “transfer”. Since the reason that even true consignments
are deemed to be security interests under the Alberta PPSA is to protect reliant transferees, a transfer
of possession under a true consignment ought to constitute a sufficient transfer to trigger the s. 7(2)
policy. What is significant here, however, is the court’s reliance on the location of title as the criterion
for distinguishing between true security consignments and deemed security consignments.
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are two additional factors in operation. The first factor is that, with the single excep-
tion of Ontario, all Article 9 and PPSA jurisdictions subject commercial consignments
to the perfection and priority framework applicable to PMSIs. Under the PPSAs, this
is accomplished by deeming commercial consignments to be security interests for the
purposes of perfection and priority,’7 and under the U.C.C., by extending the Article 9
perfection rules for PMSIs to true consignments via U.C.C. Article 2.38 Although
more circuitous, the U.C.C. technique avoids the dangers inherent in deeming some-
thing to be that which it is not.’ The first danger is that the courts take the artificial
security label at face value and extend the unnatural meaning beyond the limited con-
text for which it was intended.'” Second, the drafters themselves may forget that they
chase money security interest”
‘ See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 3(2), s. 1: “commercial consignment” and “pur-
“‘ While Article 9 as such does not apply to “true” consignments, U.C.C. 2-326 classifies them as
contracts of “sale or return” and subjects the consigned goods to the claims of the consignee’s credi-
tors unless the consignor satisfies one of three alternative “publicity” requirements: (i) compliance
with any applicable law (e.g. the sign statutes in force in some of the states) regarding the giving of
notice of the consignor’s interest; (ii) establishing that the consignee’s creditors knew that the con-
signee was in the business of selling the goods of others; or (iii) compliance with the Article 9 filing
requirements. Since many states do not have sign statutes for consignments, and in light of the prob-
lems of proof associated with establishing the requisite knowledge in the second criterion, an Article
9 filing is by far the most commonplace publicity mechanism used by consignors. If a consignment is
made subject to Article 9’s filing requirements by U.C.C. 2-326, then U.C.C. 9-114 requires the
consignor to also comply with the rules governing purchase money financiers of inventory; i.e., in ad-
dition to effecting an Article 9 filing, the inventory financier must also give actual notice of the con-
signment to prior inventory secured parties before the consignee receives possession of the goods.
“” For a comprehensive critique of the use (or misuse) of the deeming technique in the context of
Article 9, see “Sacred Cows”, supra note 45.
“, This was done in Octagon Gas, supra note 60. In a recent New Brunswick decision, the trial
court fell into the same error in the case of a true commercial consignment, extending the PPSA secu-
rity label beyond that framework to a priority contest between the consignor and the consignee’s
landlord exercising distress rights against the consigned inventory: Khoury Real Estate Services v.
Max hIternational Fashions (1996), 184 N.B.R. (2d) 172, 469 A.P.R. 172 (Q.B.), rev’d (1997), 190
N.B.R. (2d) 8, 148 D.L.R. (4th) 379 (C.A.). The consignor did not qualify for super-priority under s.
34(2) of the New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, against other secured parties because it had regis-
tered out of time and had not given notice to prior inventory financiers. Because the New Brunswick
PPSA includes consignments within the s. I definition of “purchase money security interest,” the
Court ruled that the landlord took priority. The ruling is wrong because compliance with s. 34(2) is ir-
relevant to a priority contest between a landlord’s non-consensual distress lien and a security interest,
deemed or otherwise. Priority is instead governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act, R.S.N.B. 1986, c.
L-I under which the landlord’s right of distress is limited to goods “owned” by the tenant, thereby ex-
cluding goods owned by a consignor. see R. Wood & M.I. Wylie, “Non-Consensual Security Interests
in Personal Property” (1992) 30 Alta. L. Rev. 1055 at 1084-85. Indeed, even if the consignment had
been a “true” security interest (in the sense of a “disguised” conditional sale) the landlord still would
have been subordinated because the landlord and tenant legislation in PPSA jurisdictions affords a su-
per-priority to PMSIs provided only that they are registered at the date of distress (which was the case
here). This latter point-the less stringent requirements for super-priority of title reservation security
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have artificially extended the meaning of the term and may draft with only the natural
meaning in mind.”‘ This point aside, bringing commercial consignments into the Arti-
cle 9 and PPSA filing framework via an expansive “functional” interpretation of the
concept of security has greatly reduced the pressure on the courts to resolve the pub-
licity problem shared by true consignments and security consignments.
The second factor relates to the weaker proprietary basis for the consignor’s bene-
ficial ownership claim relative to that of the equipment lessor. Unlike the lessor, the
true consignor’s reservation of title in the consigned goods is not meant to endure un-
til it is paid and moves to the consignee. If the transaction proceeds as both parties
intend, title will remain in the consignor only until the goods are sold by the con-
signee and replaced by a claim to the proceeds secured by a trust, minus the agent’s
selling commission. In other words, the collateral base in a consignment arrangement
is likely to comprise the same shifting mix of personal property assets as that on
which the consignee’s creditors rely for satisfaction of their claims. Given the height-
ened risk of prejudice to creditors posed by commercial consignments, and their far
closer identity with inventory security arrangements, it is not surprising that courts
have felt less compunction than in the case of equipment leases to effect a wholesale
subordination of such interests for failure to register.’42
E. Simple Bailments and Security
Apart from leases, neither the U.C.C. nor the PPSAs purport to extend their reach
to a non-security bailment under which the only performance that the bailor’s reser-
vation of title secures is the bailee’s obligation to return the goods to the owner at the
conclusion of their relationship. So long as the bailor’s reservation of title is stable,
i.e., the parties have selected a transactional form under which title is not meant to
pass through the debtor to third parties (unlike a consignment), it is not subject to
regulation even as a deemed security interest. So, for instance, the delivery of grapes
to a juice processor for processing and storage,”‘ or the delivery of cattle to an agistor
devices outside the PPSA framework-affords yet another example of the PPSA drafters’ residual
“formalistic” deference to title-based security.
“‘ Thus, the intended scope of s. 7(3) of the Alberta PPSA, supra note 6, as interpreted in A.K. Con-
struction, supra note 136, would have been clarified had the drafters remembered that the words
“transfer an interest in the collateral,” while clearly sufficient to capture the transfer of a proprietary
interest in the nature of security, are at least ambiguous when it comes to a deemed security interest
under which the subject of the transfer is a bare right to possession coupled with an agency to sell.
,,2 There is a close analogy in “unreformed” common law jurisdictions to the treatment of condi-
tional sale arrangements of the “Romalpa” type under which attempts have been made to extend the
seller’s interest into the buyer’s proceeds of resale. For further discussion, see the text accompanying
notes 245ff., below.
“‘ See e.g. Glenshaw Glass Company v. Ontario Grape Growers’ Marketing Board, 67 F.3d 470
(U.S.C.A. 3d Cir. 1995), online: WL (CTA), where the Court held that the delivery by grape growers
of their grapes to a juice processor for processing and storage was a simple bailment, not a consign-
ment, notwithstanding that the processors held an “option” to purchase some of the grape product,
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for grazing, feeding, and fattening on the agistor’s land,'” do not even qualify as
deemed security interests in the nature of consignments so long as the bailee is not
authorized to sell the final product.
Our comparison of equipment leases and consignments suggests that a simple ti-
tle-retention bailment is unlikely to generate the same level of third party prejudice as
one in which the owner seeks to extend its title into the proceeds of the secured or
bailment assets. Nonetheless, where the goods which are subject to a bailment for
processing are of the same generic type as the bailee’s own inventory, lack of public-
ity generates obvious detrimental reliance problems for the bailee’s creditors, and in
particular the bailee’s inventory financier. For this reason, some courts have suc-
cumbed to the temptation to make public notice by filing a requirement in order to
protect the owner’s interest under a processing bailment against a prior secured
lender.’5 Rather than simply reverting to Article 9’s functional definition of security-
i.e., the bailor’s ownership functions to secure the bailee’s obligation to return the
goods-the courts have employed a variant of title analysis. The variant in question is
that a bailee vested with physical possession and processing control has sufficient
“rights in the collateral” under Article 9 to support attachment of the competing Arti-
because the processor was authorized only to deliver the final grape product to the grape growers, not
to sell it.
‘ A contract of agistment is a bailment arrangement of medieval origin, still in popular commercial
use particularly in western Canada and the United States, under which one person (the agistor) takes
another’s cattle or other animals for grazing, feeding, and fattening on the agistor’s land until they are
ready to be redelivered to their owner for market. In Cargill Ltd. v. Hoeppner (1996), 109 Man. R.
(2d) 81, 40 C.B.R. (3d) 102 (Q.B.) [hereinafter Cargill cited to C.B.R.], the agistor purported to grant
a security interest in the bailed cattle to the plaintiffs. On the agistor’s bankruptcy, the plaintiffs chal-
lenged the owner’s claim to the return of the cattle, contending that because the concept of “title” is ir-
relevant to the characterization of security in a PPSA regime, the bailor’s ownership constituted a “se-
curity interest” subordinate to that of the plaintiffs for want of perfection. In remitting that issue to
trial, Master Harrison correctly recognized that to say that the location of title is not relevant to the
characterization of security under the PPSA is not equivalent to saying that the location of beneficial
ownership is irrelevant: “[N]o one has contended that the mere delivery of a chattel … triggers the ap-
plication of the security legislation” (Cargill, ibid. at 106). See also Re Zwagerman, 115 B.R. 540
(U.S. Bankr. Ct. 1990), online: WL (FBKR-CS), aff’d 125 B.R. 486 (W.D. Mich. 1991), online WL
(FBKR-CS) where cattle were likewise delivered for feeding, fattening, and preparing for sale by a
bailee. At issue was whether the bailment constituted a consignment subject to the Article 9 inventory
perfection requirements via U.C.C. 2-236 as against an inventory security interest granted by the
agistor in its own cattle. In ruling that the transaction was not a consignment (and therefore effective
against the agistor’s inventory financier notwithstanding the absence of an Article 9 filing) the court
focused on the fact that delivery of the cattle to the debtor was not primarily for resale.
” Honnold, Harris & Mooney, supra note 135 at 266, observing that while Article 9 does not re-
quire a “pure” bailee to cure any public notice problems by filing or otherwise, some courts have been
influenced-in distinguishing between a “pure” bailment for processing on the one hand, and security
or consignment transactions on the other-by the perception that creditors of the bailee, especially
Article 9 inventory financiers, may rely to their detriment on the bailee’s “apparent ownership” of the
bailed goods.
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cle 9 financier’s inventory security interest.” This mode of reasoning is inaccurate
and incomplete. A bare right of possession, even independently of any processing
authority, constitutes sufficient rights in the collateral to support attachment of an Ar-
ticle 9 or PPSA security interest.” This, however, does not mean that the secured
lender has priority as over the bailor. Article 9 and the PPSAs do not purport to regu-
late priority as between an antecedent ownership interest (other than a deemed secu-
rity interest) and a security interest.”‘ The competition is instead governed by the
common law maxim nemo dat quod non habet, under which a security interest taken
in bailed goods is presumptively defeasible against the true owner unless the owner is
estopped from denying the bailee’s authority to sell or encumber the collateral.”‘ Even
if the analysis is erroneous in doctrinal terms, what is significant for present purposes
is the courts’ analytical reliance on formal property concepts rather than unqualified
functionalism to resolve the security characterization problem.
116 See e.g. Kinetics Technology International Corporation v. Fourth National Bank of Tulsa, 705
F.2d 396 (U.S.C.A. 10th Cir. 1983), online: WL (CTA) where, in a priority contest between a bailor of
goods and the bailee’s Article 9 inventory financier, it was held that the delivery of goods for proc-
essing along with other goods gives a bailee sufficient “rights in the collateral” to support attachment
of an Article 9 security interest given by the bailee. In ruling that the Article 9 financier therefore took
priority over the bailor, the court stressed that otherwise the inventory security interest could be de-
feated by the kind of “hidden title subterfuge” that the U.C.C. was designed to prevent and that a
bailor in such a case could easily protect itself against by filing an Article 9 PMSI, thereby advancing
the U.C.C. policy of providing notice and certainty to inventory financiers. Compare Evergreen Ma-
rine Corporation v. Six Consignments of Frozen Scallops, 4 E3d 90 (lst Cir. 1993), online: WL
(CTA) where in awarding priority to the carrier of a cargo of scallops as against the secured creditor
of the debtor-the debtor having fraudulently induced delivery without surrendering the bills of lad-
ing which were still held by a Dutch bank-the court ruled that the temporary entrustment of posses-
sion to the debtor was insufficient to support attachment of an Article 9 security interest granted by
the bailee in its goods.
‘4″ For further discussion, see the text accompanying notes 116-23, above. See also Gray v. Royal
Bank of Canada (1997), 143 D.L.R. (4th) 179, 12 RP.S.A.C. (2d) 126 (B.C.S.C.) [hereinafter Gray]
where X, the potential buyer of a motor home, asked the owner to vacate in order to facilitate the sale,
then forged documents of title to the home and resold it to the debtor, who had obtained purchase
money financing from a bank. When the owner discovered what had happened, he successfully sued
X and the debtor in conversion and obtained an order for possession. The debtor stopped paying un-
der the security agreement and the bank seized the home. In the ensuing litigation between the owner
and the bank, the court ruled that the debtor had sufficient rights in the collateral by derivation from
X’s possession to support the grant of a PPSA security interest. However, the PPSA did not purport to
regulate priority between an antecedent owner of the collateral (unless deemed to be a secured credi-
tor) and a PPSA secured party. Consequently, priority was governed by the supplementary common
law, specifically the common law maxim nemo dat quod non habet, under which the bank acquired
only a bare possessory title, defeasible against the owner, unless the owner was estopped by his con-
duct-pursuant to s. 26 of the British Columbia Sale of Goods Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 410-from de-
nying X’s authority to sell. The mere handing over of possession was insufficient to clothe X with the
apparent authority to sell. Consequently, the owner’s right prevailed.
“‘ Gray, ibid. See generally Board, supra note 20.
49 Gray, ibid.
610
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F Security and Trust
The appropriate characterization of transactions in the form of Quistclose trusts'”
has given rise to particular difficulties in the PPSA literature.'” In a Quistclose type
transaction, a lender advances money to a debtor on strict terms that it be applied to a
specific purpose, e.g. payment by the debtor of a specific third party obligation. Be-
fore the purpose can be accomplished, however, the payee becomes insolvent or mis-
appropriates the money to another purpose. On a trust analysis, the payer has a right
of reclamation against the specific funds to the extent they remain identifiable or
traceable. Since the money has come into the payee’s hands impressed with a trust for
a specified purpose, the payee holds it as trustee and, on the failure of that purpose,
the payer is entitled to its return on the basis of a resulting trust.”‘
From a purely functionalist point of view, Michael G. Bridge has elsewhere ar-
gued that the Quistclose payer is a secured party in that a transaction of this type evi-
dences a “clear express intention that the payer is to be protected from the claims of
other creditors of the payee”‘” on the latter’s insolvency and therefore “clearly evinces
an intention to seek and provide security.”” While these same priority attributes at-
tend any purpose trust, the Quistclose variation is distinguished by its coexistence
with a debt. This element seems to take us closer to a security device which is like-
wise characterized by the coexistence of debt and a property-based preference over
other creditors upon the debtor’s insolvency.
Nonetheless, if the Quistclose trust is a secured transaction, it operates in a
“somewhat eccentric way”” In a normal secured transaction, the collateral is inde-
pendent of the loan advance and secures its repayment. In a Quistclose transaction,
however, the creditor is in effect asserting a security interest in the advance itself; in
practice, its traceable proceeds. If the advance is applied to the specified purpose, the
debt will remain but the collateral will be exhausted and the creditor will only be left
with an unsecured claim. Thus, it is not the debtor’s failure to repay the advance
against which the Quistclose payer is secured, but the debtor’s failure to carry out the
trust purpose. Analysts fear that making this point is “a betrayal of the liberal notions
underlying the PPSA and the policy objectives it seeks to foster.”” After all, on a
functionalist definition, a security interest secures payment or performance of an obli-
gation. While the Quistclose trust may not secure the payment of a loan obligation, it
“‘ Named after the English case in which the trust analysis was first employed to protect the lender
qua trust beneficiary: Barclays Bank v. Quistclose Investments Ltd. (1968), [1970] A.C. 567, [1970] 3
W.L.R. (H.L.) [hereinafter Quistclose].
‘” See Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 63; “English Experience”, supra note 10; and D.R.
Klinck, “The Quistclose Trust in Canada” (1994) 23 Can. Bus. L.J. 45.
‘”Quistclose, supra note 150.
‘””World of Secured Transactions”, supra note 11 at 345.
‘ Ibid. See also ibid. at 345-46, 360-61.
” Klinck, supra note 151 at 71.
‘6 Ibid.
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M.G. BRIDGE, ETAL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
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does secure performance of the debtor’s obligation to carry out the purpose of the ad-
vance. 57
It is here that the formal title-based limits on functionalism come into operation.
The Quistclose payer’s interest does not conform to the prototype of a security inter-
est because beneficial title to the collateral-i.e., the payer’s advance-never resides
in the debtor. The beneficial title either vests in the third party payee or remains in the
payer depending on whether or not the purpose of the trust is carried out.’ The debtor
is simply a conduit through whom the advance is channelled to carry out the purpose
of the trust; its title is the bare legal title of the trustee, not the beneficial title of the se-
cured debtor.
PPSA analysts are understandably reluctant to rest the characterization of the
Quistclose trust on this kind of “atavistic” title-based thinking.”‘ Yet, at the enforce-
ment level, it is clearly pointless to impose a security characterization on the Quist-
close payer’s interest in the funds advanced. The essence of the Article 9 and PPSA
enforcement regime is protection of the debtor’s residual beneficial interest in the
collateral. However, in a Quistclose trust transaction, the debtor never acquires benefi-
cial ownership of the advanced funds. By definition, there is no surplus equity in the
debtor to protect.
As with other title reservation devices, however, misgivings about giving effect to
the entailments of the trust concept have more to do with ostensible ownership con-
cems vis-t-vis third party creditors than with its appropriateness as a vehicle for giv-
ing effect to the business objectives of the immediate parties. Trust law, after all, does
not require that trust funds be kept separate and apart from the trustee’s own assets,
but merely that they remain identifiable or traceable. Indeed, a stipulation to this effect
is not even seen as essential to the implication of a trust relationship.”‘ This makes
sense from the viewpoint of trust law. A strict rule requiring segregation would be
,’ Ibid. at 70. See also “English Experience”, supra note 10 at 203: “A security interest is one that
secures payment or performance [of an obligation]; it does not have to ensure it:’
… Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 63.
” ‘English Experience”, supra note 10 at 203: “Discomfort at the prospect of Quistclose trusts be-
ing treated as security agreements may be seen as the atavistic expression of title-based thinking:’ See
also Klinck, supra note 151 at 65:
The approach suggested by [the PPSA definition of “security interest”] is different
from that which would be taken in a setting where “title” was regarded as critical and
which might say: ‘This is a trust. The payer retains equitable title. Therefore the asset
cannot be the subject of a charge in favour of other of the payee’s creditors. It doesn’t
belong to the payee.’
” ‘Air Canada v. M & L Travel Ltd., [1993] 3 S.C.R. 787, 108 D.L.R. (4th) 592. In concluding that
an agreement under which a travel agency was to sell passenger tickets on behalf of an airline, collect
the proceeds, and hold them in trust pending remission (less its sale commissions) gave rise to a trus-
tee-beneficiary relationship, the Court ruled that the absence of any express prohibition in the agree-
ment against comingling the proceeds with the agency’s own money did not necessarily convert the
parties’ relationship into one of debtor-creditor.
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tantamount to saying that the trust, and with it the rights of the trust beneficiaries,
could be destroyed by the trustee’s breach.'”‘ From the perspective of insolvency law,
however, if the trust funds are not in fact segregated, how are we to protect the public-
ity needs of the payee’s general and secured creditors? This concern is what prompted
a United States court to rule that receivables attributable to air freight services per-
formed by an insolvent freight forwarding agent for an air carrier were subject to a
prior all-assets security interest granted by the agent to its financing bank. The Court
so ruled notwithstanding the fact that the receivables were subject to an express trust
in favour of the carrier under a standard International Air Transport Association
(“IATA”) trust-agency agreement:
Clearly, the real purpose of the IATA [trust-agency] agreement was an attempt
to ensure that carriers would be paid regardless of the debtor’s insolvency.
Clearly, the parties did not intend to create a trust; but sought merely to secure
their payment from Shulman by means of a secret lien in contravention of the
Uniforn Commercial Code. There is a general bankruptcy policy against such
secret interests, … and general creditors should not be limited by these endeav-
ors, Pan Am is therefore only entitled to share in the estate pari passu with
other general unsecured creditors.’ 2
If a trust-agency arrangement is ineffective to protect the carrier against its agent’s
secured and unsecured creditors in cases of this type, presumably the carrier’s only
recourse is to take and register a security interest in the proceeds of sale of its prod-
ucts and to seek a subordination agreement from any prior secured parties of record.
In other words, recourse to a security label in this case is not premised upon either the
formal or functional identity of trust and security transactions, but on the common
publicity concerns posed by both. Thus, analysts who resort to title analysis to take
Quistclose trusts outside the PPSA go on to say that if the Quistclose arrangement
“becomes a significant financing technique, it may become desirable to bring it under
the umbrella of the legislation, but this is not the same as saying that it is there al-
ready.” 6
It is difficult to see how the imposition of a security label would be advantageous
to the general creditors in these types of cases. Assuming registration and filing are ef-
fected, security law, as much as trust law, would, in any event, award the carrier a
property-based preference over the claims of the general creditors. Why require filing
at all? From the viewpoint of general creditors, the principal rationale is so as to pro-
tect themselves against the risk that a property-based claim to priority by another
creditor represents an unjust preference. Trust law, however, already recognizes and
responds to the need to limit and legitimize the real preference afforded the trust bene-
ficiary. The beneficiary is not simply entitled to a preference against the insolvent
trustee’s estate equal to the value of the trust assets; its preference, even under trust
r6 Klinck, supra note 151 at 74-76.
16, Re Shulnan Transport Enterprises, Inc. 21 B.R. 548 at 552-53 (Bankr. N.Y 1982), online: WL
(FBKR-CS).
163Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 63.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
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law analysis, subsists only so long as the trust assets remain identifiable in specie or
traceable as proceeds.
Of greater concern is the need to protect the reliance interest of prior secured par-
ties of record who hold a security interest in the agent’s receivables. If the proceeds
derived from the sale of the carrier’s products are not segregated, the prior assignee
may be misled by the agent’s ostensible ownership into making further advances. The
problem is illustrated by the facts in Canadian Pacific Air Lines Ltd. v. Canadian Im-
perial Bank of Commerce.”‘ This case involved a standard-form IATA agreement be-
tween a travel agency and several airlines, under which the proceeds of sale of the
airlines’ tickets were to be held in trust by the agency pending satisfactory accounting
and settlement. The agency, however, deposited the proceeds into its general bank ac-
count, and the bank, which held a general security interest in the agency’s receivables,
applied the deposits against its secured debt. Asserting their tracing rights as trust
beneficiaries, the airlines claimed the return of the proceeds from the bank.
On an Article 9 and PPSA analysis, we would presumably want the drafters to
award an express super-priority to the carrier over the bank. This is analogous to an
inventory purchase money financing agreement or, more accurately, to a commercial
consignment under which an agent effects a sale of its principal’s products without it-
self acquiring any beneficial interest in those products. On the same analogy, we
would want to qualify this super-priority by implying a condition that the bank be
given advance notice of the existence of the airline’s prior trust claim so as it could
protect itself from being misled into making further advances on the security of the
fresh assets injected by the carrier into the debtor’s ostensible collateral base.
Again, however, we are not convinced that the security solution is necessarily su-
perior to that which results from a trust analysis. Trust law seeks to protect reliant
third parties by terminating the beneficiary’s right to trace into the trustee’s estate
when the property is transferred to a purchaser for value without notice. Thus, even
under a trust law analysis, a prior accounts financier would take free and clear of the
carrier’s interest to the extent it could show lack of actual knowledge and prejudicial
reliance in the form of later advances.6 ‘
The principal difference between Article 9 and PPSA solutions and trust solutions
thus lies in the need to show actual reliance to acquire priority over the beneficiary’s
interest. Pursuant to the Article 9 and PPSA solution, the carrier’s omission to register
and to deliver a written advance notice of its interest to the bank would effect a subor-
dination of its interest regardless of whether the bank’s advances pre-dated the car-
196 (C.A.) [hereinafter Canadian Pacific Air Lines].
” (1987), 61 O.R. (2d) 233, 27 E.T.R. 281 (H.C.J.), aff’d (1990), 71 O.R. (2d) 63, 4 C.B.R. (3d)
‘6’ The bank in Canadian Pacific Air Lines asserted that argument, albeit unsuccessfully. The Court
ruled that the bank had knowledge of the nature of its clients’ business operation and therefore should
have known that monies deposited in the account had been collected purely as agent for the airline. In
these circumstances, it was not entitled to claim the benefit of the bonafide purchaser rule under trust
law.
614
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rier’s injection of new value into the debtor’s estate, and regardless of whether the
bank had knowledge of the carrier’s interest in the accounts. Pursuant to a trust analy-
sis, the bank would have to demonstrate both absence of knowledge and actual preju-
dicial reliance in the form of subsequent advances. Thus, the principal advantage of
the security solution is the elimination of the problems of proof inherent in the appli-
cation of an actual reliance test. Is this sufficient to justify the corresponding increase
in transaction costs associated with the imposition of the burden of public registration
and the corresponding reduction in the parties’ bargaining flexibility? To what extent
should the formal distinction between ownership and security influence where this
balance is to be struck?
G. The Analysis So Far: The Utility of Formalism
Our analysis thus far illustrates the continued vitality of the formal conception of
security-it is necessarily by grant rather than by reservation of ownership-and the
preservation of the distinction between ownership and security that that proposition
entails. Relatedly, it suggests that there can exist interests in property that function to
secure an obligation but that do not thereby become “security interests”. The apparent
exceptions to that proposition-conditional sales, leases, and consignments-have not
served as a watershed for expanding the concept of security to encompass all non-
possessory interests. Instead, they have been found capable of regulation as security
only through a formal reconceptualization of the location of title under the transac-
tion. This is so whether it is for all purposes, as in the case of conditional sales and
analogous postponed title-transfer transactions, or for the more limited purposes of
perfection and priority, as in the case of “true” leases and “true” consignments. The
need to resort to formal techniques to accomplish the security characterization in
these exceptional cases illustrates two points: (i) that security interests and other non-
possessory property interests share a common problem-the need for publicity-and
not a common character, and (ii) that functional analysis alone is inadequate to re-
solve this common problem. However compelling the case for making public notice a
prerequisite for protection, extension of the Article 9 and PPSA filing framework be-
yond conventional security transactions requires an explicit legislative policy direc-
tive.
Rather than being a ground for concern, recognition of the formal limits of func-
tionalism avoids obscuring the basic policy issue at stake in extending the Article 9
and PPSA framework beyond the world of security. The policy issue in question is
whether or not ownership is intrinsically deserving of a higher level of protection at
the priority level than the interest of a secured creditor. Canadian PPSA jurisdictions
have gone much further with regard to assimilation than their Article 9 counterparts,
as reflected in two above-noted differences in their relative scope. First, under the
PPSAs, all suppliers are required to perfect as a condition for priority over the buyer’s
prior secured creditors and general creditors—even when the results of non-
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
615
compliance are largely a windfall.'” Second, with the exception of Ontario, the PPSAs
subject even true leases to the same perfection and priority requirements as security
interests.
These differences in the Canadian and United States policies demonstrate that
even when jurisdictions share a common functionalist perspective, they may disagree
on how the implications of functionalism operate in terms of their relative emphasis
on the values associated with the “formal” distinction between security (publicity and
certainty) and ownership (private property and freedom of contract). Most notably,
what explains the Canadian PPSAs’ position is the strength of the commitment of
these jurisdictions to the reliability and integrity of their registration systems, and to
the perceived utility of these systems not just as means of protecting reliant third par-
ties, but as vehicles for regulating priorities in a manner that reduces the need for a
litigation-intensive, case-by-case analysis of the substantive nature of the parties’
transaction. In this respect, the history of registration legislation in common law Can-
ada suggests that a framework weighted toward the values of registration will con-
tinue to dominate.'”
Wherever the balance is struck in a particular jurisdiction, there will always re-
main a residue of cases where looser concepts such as estoppel will have to be relied
upon to protect third parties.” First, the transaction may not be so commonplace as to
make imposition of a filing burden of this type fair or efficient. Second, the formal
framework out of which the transaction arose-as our analysis of trust law illus-
trated-may well provide at least as commercially responsive a solution to the need
for publicity as public registration.'”
H. The Limits of Formalism
The continued relevance of conventional title analysis, even within a functionalist
world, is confirmed by a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The issue
in Alberta (Treasury Branches)’ was who had priority in a debtor’s accounts, as be-
tween Revenue Canada exercising its statutory garnishment remedy under federal tax
legislation, and the holder of a general assignment of book debts taken and registered
under the Alberta PPSA. The federal legislation defined a “secured party” over whom
the Minister’s interest was to prevail as someone holding a “security interest in the
‘6 This is evidenced in the case of a sale of consumer goods where the risk of prejudicial reliance
by other creditors is virtually non-existent.
‘6’ This is seen most dramatically in the scope of the former Canadian CSAs. As noted earlier, these
acts, unlike their pre-Article 9 counterparts in the United States, extended beyond conditional sales
transactions to include true leases: see supra note 122 and accompanying text.
See generally Rusch, supra note 126.
‘
69 See e.g. Re Zwagenan, supra note 144, regarding testimony that prudent cattle owners were un-
likely to appreciate the need for an Article 9 filing in contracts of agistment covering cattle delivered
for custom feeding so that the publicity problem was, therefore, better resolved through branding.
“0 Supra note 44.
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The federal legislation clearly intended that Revenue Canada
property of another’
was to have priority over prior secured parties holding an interest in the tax debtor’s
receivables by way of security, but not over the interest of an assignee who had pur-
chased the accounts since these had been removed from the property of the tax debtor.
Thus, Revenue Canada’s priority tumed on whether the assignment was by way of
sale or security.
On its face, the assignment purported to effect an absolute transfer of the ac-
counts, rendering the debtor an agent for collection and trustee of the proceeds. Yet
the debtor was simultaneously empowered to use the proceeds of collection in the or-
dinary course of business pending default. Most significantly, the debtor was entitled
to redeem unqualified beneficial ownership in the accounts upon payment of the obli-
gation secured by the assignment. In upholding Revenue Canada’s argument in favour
of a security characterization, the majority decision focused on this feature:
If an instrument is an absolute assignment … there cannot be a residual right
remaining with the debtor to recover the assets. By definition, a complete and
perfect assignment cannot recognize the concept of an equity of redemption.
An absolute assignment cannot function as a means of “securing” the payment
of a debt since there would be no basis for the debtor to recover that which has
been absolutely assigned.”‘
As long as that redemption right persisted, the assignee remained a secured party.”‘ In
other words, it was the residual beneficial title in the accounts residing with the debtor
Income TaxAct, S.C. 1970-71-72, c. 63, s. 224(1.3); and Excise TaxAct, R.S.C. 1985, c. E-15, s.
317(4) defining “security creditor” for the purposes of the sections establishing the Minister’s super-
priority (hIcome Tax Act, s. 224(1.2) and Excise Tax Act, s. 317(3)) as “a person who has a security
interest in the property of another”Alberta (Treasury Branches) was decided on facts which preceded
the effective date (November 30, 1992) of amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act which
classified Crown claims (with only very limited exceptions) as unsecured for the purposes of ranking
in bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings (Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, S.C. 1992, c. 27, adding
new s. 86). However, the views expressed by the Court in Alberta (Treasury Branches) on the proper
interpretation of the definition of “secured party” in the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act are not
affected by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act’s amendment.
.. Alberta (Treasury Branches), supra note 44 at 619 [emphasis in original].
.. To the same effect with respect to the characterization of security taken under s. 427 of the Bank
Act, supra note 74 (in the context of responding to arguments that s. 427 vests the bank with the status
of an “owner” of. the collateral for priority purposes), see Ford Motor Co. of Canada v. Manning Mer-
cury Sales Ltd. (Trustee o) (1996), 140 D.L.R. (4th) 344, [1997] 1 W.W.R. 43 (Sask. C.A.) [herein-
after Ford Motor cited to W.W.R.], rev’d on other grounds [1996] S.C.C.A. No. 627, online: QL
(SCCA):
[The proposition that the bank holds legal title] does not recognize that a section 178
[now s. 427] assignment is essentially a security interest. The conveyance of [legal] title
… does not mean that the bank is the absolute owner. The conveyance secures the obli-
gation to pay in much the same way as any other fixed security interest. There are re-
strictions on the bank with respect to default and the debtor may redeem the collateral
and there are circumstances where the debtor may convey good title to another (Ford
Motor, ibid. at 67-68).
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
during the currency of the arrangement that was treated as the critical characterization
criterion.
In drawing this distinction, the majority conceded that, to the extent that the se-
cured obligation exceeded the economic value of the accounts at any given time, it
was unrealistic to treat the debtor as the owner of the collateral in any sense. However,
it was thought that this kind of functionalist insight should not affect the characteriza-
tion exercise. To have the status of the relationship between the parties fluctuate be-
tween secured party/debtor and seller/buyer depending on the state of the accounts
between them at any given moment would undermine certainty in commercial deal-
ings. Indeed, it was feared that if every general assignment of a firm’s accounts was
interpreted as an absolute transfer of ownership, this might have prejudicial implica-
tions for the ordering of bankruptcy priorities. Bankruptcy regimes are premised upon
the ability to draw a distinction between that which is the property of the bankrupt and
that which is not. Obliteration of that line of demarcation might become a means by
which an unscrupulous debtor and creditor could order their affairs so as to remove
protection from other bonafide creditors.
For the functionalist minority, the presence of a purely theoretical residual owner-
ship interest in the debtor was an insufficient basis of distinction. After all, accounts
are as liquid a form of collateral as one can have next to cash. If the debtor is insol-
vent, there is unlikely to be any residual value left in the collateral over and above the
amount of the secured loan. In this sense, then, it is as though the debtor had sold its
accounts outright even if the presence of a redemption right makes the assignment
notionally by way of security.
The minority opinion is not without merit. Article 9 and the PPSAs have removed
virtually all impediments to a debtor’s ability to grant a first-ranking security interest
in all present and after-acquired personal property to secure all present and future ad-
vances.’ Although priority is still nominally property based, the result comes peril-
ously close to awarding the all-assets financier an automatic preference over other
creditors in the debtor’s entire estate.'” From an insolvency perspective, the distinction
,’ U.C.C. 9-204(1) (after-acquired property) and 9-204(3) (future advances). For the equivalent
PPSA provisions, see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 13 (after-acquired property) and s.
14 (future advances). See also s. 10(1)(b)(iii), endorsing the effectiveness of a collateral description
covering “all of the debtor’s present and after acquired property”; s. 20, recognizing the effectiveness
of a perfected security interest against the debtor’s judgment creditors and trustee in bankruptcy; and
s. 35, awarding first priority, as a general rule, to the first secured party to perfect by registration or
taking possession.
“‘ See e.g P.F. Coogan, “Article 9-An Agenda for the Next Decade” (1978) 87 Yale L.J. 1012 at
1019 observing that Article 9 has transformed our conception of security from a “property right in
specific assets that a secured party can possess and sell to something more like a prior claim against a
debtor’s fungible assets”; L.M. LoPucki, “The Unsecured Creditor’s Bargain” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev.
1887 at 1899: “Security is an agreement between A and B that C take nothing”; and Kanda &
Levmore, supra note 104 at 2124-25:
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between secured debt and third party ownership of the debtor’s assets has become
correspondingly less meaningful in that they both offer functionally identical means
by which the insolvent debtor can judgment-proof its estate from the claims of other
creditors.’76
II. Personal Property Security or Personal Property Securities?
By starting with [the presumption that all secured
transactions should be subject to the same rules] we
create the risk that we make a Procrustean bed, one
that may be as confining as the one from which the
drafters of Article 9 escaped when they abolished the
distinctions between the many different legal forms that
governed economically identical transactions. Instead
of beginning with the idea that there are artificial
legal forms that are part of the landscape, we should
begin with the idea that the world of secured transac-
tions is one that is flat and has discrete boundaries.
This assumption has its own dangers.'”
Our analysis of title-reservation security in Part I illuminates the nature of Article
9 and PPSA security more generally. Notwithstanding the open-ended characteriza-
tion invited by a functionalist concept of security, the legislation has largely been in-
terpreted as a means of regulating transactions that conform to the common law’s
prototypical security institutions, and it is these institutions, not the “function” of the
transactions as such, that have driven the characterization exercise.
Article 9 itself can best be understood as leaning toward a debtor-based regime for the
first-in-time lender and an asset-based regime for late-in-time (non risk-altering) favor-
ites [e.g. purchase money financiers]. An early lender can create a security interest in
virtually all of the debtor’s assets by specifying and filing appropriately for all catego-
ries of collateral. The security interest can cover future advances and can extend to after
acquired property. This arrangement, though nominally asset based, comes close to …
automatic priority for the first substantial financier.
‘7’ “Death of Liability”, supra note 38 at 90, describes the problem in the following colourful yet
grim terms:
For the liability system to survive, it must command players to risk whatever wealth
they have by putting it into the pot. But the system has no words with which to say that.
In both the popular and legal culture the words we use to describe the system relate
only to form. We take concepts such as ownership, entity, property, and secured credi-
tor seriously. We assume they identify real things of importance when they do not. The
judgment proof debtor who sails the yacht, drives a Mercedes and lives in the house on
the hill remains wealthy, whether these items are fully encumbered, owned by the
debtor’s spouse or titled to a Cook Island trust. But neither property nor legal language
describes such a debtor as wealthy.
,”Baird, supra note 49 at 2262.
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Formalism, nonetheless, has its limits. Perhaps more accurately, Article 9 and the
PPSAs have given birth to their own brand of formal analysis. For however deep its
roots in the forms of institutionalized security, the Article 9 and PPSA security interest
is ultimately a creation separate and apart from the institutions which gave rise to it.
Its incidents are not located in the old forms and classifications of security, but within
the interstices of the legislation itself. The implications of that transformation both
within, and especially beyond, the PPSA framework are the subject of this Part.
A. From Property Rights to Priority Rules
Secured creditors have traditionally enjoyed a super-priority over subsequent
creditors, including the general body of unsecured creditors. In doctrinal terms, super-
priority is rationalized on a conveyance model”‘ or conveyance metaphor'” for secu-
rity. The secured party owns the property charged with the debt to the extent of the
value of its secured obligation. The debtor already having conveyed its property to the
first creditor, subsequent creditors necessarily take but the residual value that remains:
nemo dat quod non habet.w
The intuitive appeal of the conveyance metaphor as a basis for priority reflects
traditional jurisprudential justifications for private ownership, i.e., the concept of
property as involving the exercise of control by an individual over a material thing.
Transported into the world of security, if the necessary connection can be made be-
tween a specific creditor and a specific asset, the values associated with private prop-
erty-self-ownership, identification, moral development, desert-lend support to the
creditor’s claim for a privileged claim to that asset.”‘ From this perspective, the prop-
erty analogy is at its strongest in the case of a reservation of security by an unpaid
vendor where ownership of the very asset against which the privilege is claimed
originates with the creditor. However, the analogy progressively loses its intuitive ap-
peal as the secured creditor seeks to extend its claim beyond a specific asset into its
products and proceeds, or to attach floating assets such as inventory or accounts. In
this case, the collateral is “more of an accounting concept than a specific piece of
‘Taking Debtors’ Choices Seriously”, supra note 51.
“9 S. Knippenberg, ‘The Unsecured Creditor’s Bargain: An Essay in Reply, Reprisal, or Support?”
(1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 1967 at 1968, n. 5: “[T]o understand security in terms of the property concept
of conveyancing is to employ a metaphor, the value of assets hypothecated is property that can be
conveyed in the manner of other property” [emphasis in original].
“‘ Knippenberg, ibicL at 1975:
[O]nce it is concluded that the creation of a security interest is (rather than shares cer-
tain dimensions with) a conveyance of property, the entailments of that conclusion are
themselves a justification for the subordination of unsecured claims to secured claims.
There is simply no value remaining for unsecured creditors because it has been con-
veyed away in the security agreement [emphasis in original].
‘ S. Walt & E.L. Sherwin, “Contribution Arguments in Commercial Law” (1993) 42 Emory L.J.
897 at 949.
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property”” Moreover, the classic element of control by the property claimant is typi-
cally absent. The analogy is at its weakest when it comes to “all assets” or “universal”
business charges, namely, security interests covering a commercial debtor’s present
and future assets to secure present and future debt. In this case, the collateral is essen-
tially the debtor’s estate, the same estate for which legal systems have traditionally
established an insolvency distribution scheme informed by a principle of equal rank-
ing among creditors. To allow a debtor to convey that entire estate to the first creditor
comes dangerously close to awarding a contract-based, as opposed to a property-
based, privilege. This may, therefore, bring secured transactions law into potential
conflict with the policy against the conferral of unjust preferences on particular
creditors inherent in the equal ranking principle.
Pre-PPSA secured transactions law was attuned both to the jurisprudential limits
of the conveyance metaphor and to the distributional implications of giving it unquali-
fied effect at the level of insolvency. The pre-PPSA solution was based on a theory of
relative property rights. The ability of a secured creditor to appeal to the conveyance
metaphor for priority was related to the proprietary strength of the particular security
institution measured in terms of the scope of the collateral it purported to cover and
the level of the secured party’s control over the debtor’s right of alienation. In Part I,
one aspect of the old security hierarchy was explored, namely, the historical super-
priority awarded to an unpaid vendor’s reservation of ownership in specific goods
over other creditors, prior and subsequent, secured and unsecured. Distinctions were
also drawn among security interests created by grant from the debtor’s existing estate.
Only the holder of a legal mortgage covering specifically-identified and presently-
owned goods was entitled to the full-fledged protection of the nemo dat ranking prin-
ciple implicit in the conveyance metaphor. As the collateral base extended into the
debtor’s future estate or covered more amorphous or shifting classes of property, the
power of the conveyance metaphor progressively diminished, eventually reaching the
point of virtual disappearance in the case of an uncrystallized floating charge
security.”3
The floating charge characterization was imposed on a transaction whenever a se-
cured creditor purported to take security against circulating classes of assets, notably
1,2 J.S. Rogers, “The Impairment of Secured Creditors’ Rights in Reorganization: A Study of the
Relationship between the Fifth Amendment and the Bankruptcy Clause” (1983) 96 Harv. L. Rev. 973
at 992, n. 74 (as quoted by Knippenberg, supra note 179 at 1974, n. 29). The full quotation can be
found in the text accompanying note 360, below.
“‘ R.M. Goode, Legal Problems of Credit and Security, 2d ed. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1988)
at 48 [hereinafter Legal Problems]:
Certainly a floating charge does not do much for the creditor prior to crystallisation. He
cannot exercise proprietary or possessory rights over the assets as against either the
company or as against third parties, nor does he have a locus standi to obtain an in-
junction against the company to restrain dealings with its assets in the ordinary course
of business where the dealings are not in breach of the debenture or subject to the
creditor’s veto and his security is not in jeopardy [emphasis in original].
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
inventory or book debts, while still allowing the debtor a licence to deal freely with
those assets in the ordinary course of business.’ ” While the debtor was free to deal
with the assets, the floating charge was nonetheless treated as an effective present se-
curity interest from the moment of its inception,”5 although the security interest per se
remained unattached until the secured party crystallized its charge, i.e., terminated the
debtor’s freedom to manage and deal with the charged collateral.” Pending crystalli-
zation, the charge hovered over the circulating classes of assets as a contingent prop-
erty right, unattached to any specific asset, with the result that intervening interests,
including intervening encumbrances, attached in priority so long as they arose in the
ordinary course of business without notice of any relevant restriction in the floating
charge.”
The unitary theory of security embraced by Article 9 and the PPSAs is based on
the premise that the distinctions drawn between security interests made pursuant to
the old property rights analysis were simply a reflection of atavistic formalism and
‘”‘ The essential hallmarks of a floating charge security are that it cover present and future assets of
a shifting or circulating character (notably inventory and book debts) and that the creditor undertake
to leave the management of these assets in the hands of the debtor to deal with in the ordinary course
of business free of control by the secured party: see Legal Problems, ibid. at 48-49, 52-53. In deter-
mining whether a security arrangement satisfies these characteristics, the pre-PPSA Canadian courts
generally-though not invariably-adopted a substance over form approach; i.e., even if the charge
instrument purported to impose formal controls on the debtor’s freedom to deal with the collateral,
evidence that the debtor in fact was empowered to manage and dispose of the charged assets without
regard to these controls was enough to make the charge a floating charge: see e.g. Great Lakes Petro-
leum Co. v. Border Cities Oil Co., [1934] O.R. 244, [1934] 2 D.L.R. 743 (C.A.); and Legal Problems,
ibid. at 58-59.
” A point with respect to which, however, there rages a debate in “unreformed” jurisdictions, not-
withstanding the references in infra note 186: see S. Fisher, Commercial and Personal Property Law
(Sydney: Butterworths, 1997) at 8.18-8.22.
‘6Evans v. Rival Granite Quarries, [1910] 2 K.B. 979 at 999,79 L.J.K.B. 970 (C.A.), Buckley L.J.:
A floating security is not a future security; it is a present security which presently af-
fects all the assets of the company expressed to be included in it … but not specifically
affecting any item until some event occurs or some act on the part of the mortgagee is
done which causes it to crystallize into a fixed security.
To effect crystallization, the floating charge holder generally has to intervene in a sufficiently ac-
tive manner to give public notice that the debtor’s freedom to deal with the collateral in the ordinary
course of business is terminated: see The Queen in Right of British Columbia v. Consolidated Chur-
chill Copper Corp. (1978), 90 D.L.R. (3d) 357, 30 C.B.R. (N.S.) 27 (B.C.S.C.); and Esket Wood
Products (Receiver of) v. Starline Lumber (1991), 61 B.C.L.R. (2d) 359, 8 C.B.R. (3d) 224
(S.C.(T.D.)). In its willingness to recognize a floating charge as an effective present, albeit unattached,
security, English and Canadian common law were more accommodating to secured lending than pre-
Article 9 United States law, which regarded the absence of any exercise of control by a nominal se-
cured creditor over the debtor’s freedom to deal with collateral as incompatible with the existence of a
genuine security interest and void as a fraud on creditors: see “Good Faith Purchase Idea”, supra note
11 at 620-27.
‘8″ See e.g. Ontario Development Corp. v. Trustee of the Estate of LC. Suatac Construction Ltd.
(1976), 12 O.R. (2d) 465,69 D.L.R. (3d) 353 (C.A.).
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were antithetical to the functionalism that ought to inform commercial law and allow
for unrestricted access to credit in order to fuel business expansion. So while security
is still defined as a property-based institution,”‘ the old security hierarchy is elimi-
nated. All security interests attach with uniform proprietary vigour whether the collat-
eral is a specific automobile, circulating assets such as inventory or accounts, or the
debtor’s entire personal estate.”‘ The need to qualify the priority entailments of the
conveyance metaphor in the interests of third party protection is recognized at the
level of publicity.”‘ However, this merely shifts the first-in-time ranking inherent in
the conveyance metaphor to the perfection plane. Otherwise, all security interests are
now presumptively equal in conventional property terms and, as such, presumptively
subject to, and privileged by, a strict chronological ordering.”‘
In our view, there was more functionalism in the prior property rights approach
with regard to the ranking of security interests than the rhetoric of Article 9 and PPSA
functionalism would suggest. Consider the most well-known of the exceptions to
first-in-time priority recognized by Article 9 and the PPSAs: the super-priority af-
forded purchase money financiers over the holder of a prior-registered security inter-
est in the debtor’s present and after-acquired assets. As was noted in Part I, there are
minute differences among the various regimes as to where the line is drawn. However,
the strength of the super-priority afforded the PMSI lender steadily diminishes, and
the conditions governing its availability become more onerous as the PMSI security
interest is sought to be extended from a specific capital or consumer asset to circulat-
ing inventory or products and proceeds of inventory. A functionalist might justify
these distinctions on the basis that they constitute a reasonable means of enabling the
debtor, who has granted a general security interest to an early lender, to access more
specialized or efficient sources of financing as its business evolves, while minimizing
the risk alteration problem posed by recognizing any exceptions to the first-in-time
priority.”‘ However, in linking PMSI super-priority to the specificity of the collateral,
and the probable level of control exercised by the secured party over its disposition,
,’ Supra note 25.
“‘ Under all the Canadian PPSAs, all security interests are subject to the same attachment require-
ments, i.e., that the secured party extend value, that the debtor have rights in the collateral, and (for the
purposes of third party enforceability) that the security interest be evidenced by either possession by
the secured party or the execution of a written security agreement. See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA,
supra note 6, s. 12. For references which confirm that the old rules postponing attachment of a float-
ing charge security until crystallization no longer operate in a PPSA regime, see supra note 22.
“‘ Under all the Canadian PPSAs, failure to perfect by possession or filing subordinates the security
interest to competing perfected security interests, the interest of a buyer or lessee of the collateral, the
interest of an unsecured judgment creditor, and the debtor’s trustee in bankruptcy: see e.g. New
Brunswick PPSA, ibial, ss. 20,35.
‘9’ Under all the Canadian PPSAs, in the absence of a specific rule to the contrary, security among
competing perfected security interests in the same collateral is presumptively determined by the order
in which the perfecting step in relation to each was taken: see e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s. 35.
“‘ Kanda & Levmore, supra note 104.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
623
the Article 9 and PPSA rules are equally consistent with a classic property rights
analysis.
The priority scheme articulated by Article 9 and the PPSAs is limited to the re-
distribution of an insolvent debtor’s estate among secured creditors. The impact of all-
assets financing on the claims of the debtor’s unsecured creditors is not addressed be-
yond requiring perfection as a condition for awarding priority to the debtor’s secured
creditors.’93 Otherwise, the conveyance metaphor is applied against them only now
with increased force. Because all security interests are now subject to the same at-
tachment rules, the super-priority historically available to the unsecured creditor as
against the holder of a security interest in floating collateral is no longer available.
The drafters of Article 9 were not indifferent to the impact of unrestricted secured
financing on the unsecured creditors of the debtor.” However, they reasoned that in
one way or another the law had already progressed to the point where the debtor
could, in any event, grant an effective security interest in virtually all its assets. This
being the case, why not legitimize the defacto result directly and thereby also reduce
the transaction costs associated with the circumvention of existing formal restraints?’93
The drafters of the PPSA responded somewhat more aggressively to the same
concern, incorporating a number of explicit measures aimed at minimizing the re-
sulting prejudice. First, the more recently reformed PPSAs explicitly confirm the
freedom of the debtor, whatever the terms of the security agreement, to utilize its liq-
uid assets in the voluntary payment of ordinary course of business debts pending en-
forcement of the security interest.'” Second, by giving notice of their intervening in-
‘9’ See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 19.
” Official Comment 2 to U.C.C. 9-204, as reproduced in “Taking Debtors’ Choices Seriously”,
supra note 51 at 2022, n. 4.
The widespread nineteenth century prejudice against the floating charge was based on
a feeling, often inarticulate in the opinions, that a commercial borrower should not be
allowed to encumber all his assets present and future, and that for the protection not only
of the borrower but of his other creditors[,] a cushion of free assets should be preserved.
That inarticulate premise has much to recommend it. [Article 9] decisively rejects it not
on the ground it was wrong in policy but on the ground that it was not effective.
’95 See e.g. Baird, supra note 49 at 2257-60, observing that the history of secured credit is one in
which debtor’s assets have become increasingly available as security and that while this is not desir-
able, not much can be done to avoid it.
196 R.C.C. Cuming, “Second Generation Personal Property Security Legislation in Canada” (1981-
82) 46 Sask. L. Rev. 5 at 39-40 [hereinafter “Second Generation”]:
Since the drafters of the Saskatchewan [PPSA] made no provision for the continued use
of floating charges, there was a need to give debtors who encumber all or most of their
assets, including their liquid assets, the power to pay their unsecured creditors. Without
this power, their ability to obtain unsecured credit would be severely restricted because
secured creditors would have the right to prohibit any disposition of their collateral in
the process of paying unsecured claims. Accordingly, a provision was included in the
Saskatchewan [PPSA] under which a creditor who receives money or an instrument
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terest to the secured party, judgment creditors can arrest the secured party’s ability to
further erode the debtor’s residual equity in the collateral with the making of further
advances. 9′ Finally, several PPSA jurisdictions provide that registration of a judgment,
rather than the actual seizure of the collateral pursuant to judgment enforcement pro-
ceedings, constitutes the relevant point at which the first-in-time priority status of the
secured creditor is to be assessed as against the interest of the judgment debtor.’98
These measures do nothing, however, for the unsecured creditor whose debtor re-
fuses or is unable to pay.'” Under the old floating charge learning, the judgment
creditor at least enjoyed a super-priority as against the floating charge holder provided
that the judgment creditor’s interest attached before the secured party crystallized its
charge. Under the PPSA, all security interests attach at the moment the financing
transaction is entered into, even when the collateral is floating in nature and the
debtor’s powers of management and control remain unrestricted. This means that an
unsecured creditor who seeks to enforce payment of its debt against the collateral now
takes subject to all prior perfected security interests, including those held in the
debtor’s liquid or floating assets.’
Indeed, the judgment creditor’s ability to enforce
drawn or made by a debtor and delivered in payment of a debt owing to him by that
debtor takes free from a security interest in the money or instrument drawn or made by
the debtor whether or not the creditor has notice of the security interest.
Provisions along these lines appear in all the newer and reformed PPSAs: see e.g. New Brunswick
PPSA, supra note 6, s. 31. For an alternative drafting approach, see Ontario PPSA, supra note 6, s. 29
providing that the rights of a holder in due course of a bill, note, or cheque under the federal Bills of
Exchange Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-4, and a transferee from the debtor of money, “are to be determined
without regard to” the PPSA.
97 See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, ibid., s. 35(6).
‘
‘ See e.g. ibid., s. 20(l) providing that an unperfected security interest is subordinate to the interest
of a judgment creditor who has registered a notice of judgment in the Personal Property Registry pur-
suant to the Creditor’s Relief Act, R.S.N.B. 1986, c. C-33; and s. 35(6) providing that a perfected se-
curity interest has priority over the interest of a judgment creditor who has registered a notice of
judgment only to the extent of advances made before notice of the registration of the judgment is
given to the secured party. Note that the Creditor’s Relief Act referred to in these provisions has been
amended to provide that registration of the notice of judgment “binds” the judgment debtor’s present
and after-acquired personal property as against third party interests (subject to the same exceptions
that apply to the priority afforded by the PPSA to a perfected security interest covering present and
after-acquired property). Under the old law, the judgment debtor’s property was bound only on sei-
zure of the assets pursuant to judgment enforcement proceedings. Similar provisions exist in Alberta
and Saskatchewan and have been proposed for British Columbia.
‘ “Second Generation”, supra note 196 it 40:
Admittedly this provision [providing that an unsecured creditor takes free of a per-
fected security interest in money and cheques] is confined in its operation to situations
where the debtor voluntarily pays its unsecured creditors. It does not permit unsecured
creditors to enforce judgment against the collateral free from the intervention of a se-
cured creditor who has a prior perfected security interest.
“0 Ibid, See also Rehm v. DSG Communications Inc. (1995), 129 Sask. R. 297, [1995] 4 W.W.R.
750 (Q.B.) [hereinafter Rehm cited to Sask. R.] where an unsecured creditor of the debtor caused a
pre-judgment garnishee summons to issue against certain debts owed to the debtor by third parties.
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625
against the debtor’s residual equity in the collateral is problematic. The problem arises
because of the accounting difficulties in valuing the debtor’s residual interest in cir-
culating collateral subject to a secured obligation, the amount of which is also con-
stantly fluctuating.
While acknowledging the problem, PPSA analysts have tended to see further re-
form as the province of non-security law, notably the federal law of bankruptcy and
insolvency.”‘ After all, in practice most unsecured creditors are no worse off under the
new rules. Under the old law, unsecured creditors, prevailed only if they were able to
obtain judgment and attach that judgment to specific items of collateral before the
charge crystallized. Since the floating charge holder usually moved to crystallize its
charge at the first threat of judgment enforcement proceedings, the unsecured credi-
tor’s super-priority was often illusory.”2
What this reasoning underestimates, however, is the protection that the mere ex-
istence of the risk of subordination to judgment enforcement creditors afforded the
debtor’s general creditors during the currency of a financing arrangement covering as-
sets over which the debtor had retained freedom of management and disposition. The
existence of that threat forced the secured party to monitor the debtor’s dealings with
its general creditors to ensure that it received early warning of the threat of judgment
enforcement proceedings. Removal of that threat not only reduces the secured credi-
tor’s incentive to monitor the debtor’s general business dealings with its other credi-
tors, but also reduces the secured financier’s incentive to move quickly to terminate
On learning that the monies had been paid into court, the secured creditor claimed priority to the
monies as proceeds of an account in which it held security. The secured loan was not in default and
the evidence showed that the debtor was free under the security arrangement to use the proceeds of
accounts collected in the ordinary course of business. The court nonetheless held in favour of the se-
cured creditor. The PPSA had abolished the concept of crystallization as a condition for attachment of
a security interest in the nature of a floating charge with the result that the unsecured creditor’s gar-
nishee summons was necessarily subject to the prior attached and perfected interest of the secured
party. The court reached this conclusion not without regret: “It may be that in the PPSA … there is a
balance in favour of secured creditors over unsecured creditors” (Rehm, ibid. at 303).
‘0’ See e.g. “Second Generation”, supra note 196 at 42:
Canadian federal legislators … have refused to employ bankruptcy concepts to limit the
very dominant position that secured creditors have acquired under reformed personal
property security law. In this respect, Canada has 21st century personal property secu-
rity law and nineteenth century bankruptcy law.
See e.g. J.S. Ziegel, “Canadian Perspectives on ‘How Far Article 9 is Exportable”‘ (1996) 27
Can. Bus. L.J. 226 at 237:
[Tihe equitable floating charge promises more than it can deliver. It only assists the un-
secured creditor so long as the charge has not been crystallized. Given the ease with
which a floating charge may be crystallized, the unsecured creditor is left empty-
handed just when she needs equity’s help most. This result comes about because a
floating charge does not create an estoppel in favour of unsecured creditors after as
well as before the debtor’s insolvency. At best it provides only a small window of op-
portunity for an extremely nimble and fleetfooted unsecured creditor.
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the debtor’s powers of management and control. As long as there is sufficient value
remaining in the collateral-which of course includes the liquid assets that would
otherwise go to pay ordinary course of business debts-the secured party can safely
ignore signs that at least some creditors are going unpaid.:’ Even if enforcement pro-
ceedings are initiated and completed long before the secured party moves to terminate
the debtor’s powers of management, the secured party still prevails over the interests
of the judgment creditor.’ This increases the likelihood that the debtor will be al-
lowed to remain in business piling up further unsecured debt after it has ceased to be a
viable business entity and is effectively operating in an insolvent state.
In contrast, the old floating charge learning linked the all-asset financier’s priority
over unsecured creditors to monitoring considerations. So long as the secured party
allowed the debtor to deal with shifting or circulating collateral in the ordinary course
of business without imposing specific controls, said collateral remained available for
execution at the hands of the debtor’s judgment creditors.’ The threat of execution
creditor super-priority operated to significantly encourage closer monitoring as well
as crystallization and enforcement on the first sign of cessation of the debtor’s eco-
nomic viability. Absent that threat, unsecured creditors can no longer rely on the
debtor’s general secured lender to terminate the debtor’s business dealings sufficiently
early to minimize their losses.’ This point, and the broader implications for PPSA ju-
risdictions of the detachment of priority from its historical property law roots, are il-
2’0 It is sometimes argued that awarding priority to secured creditors over unsecured creditors is jus-
tified because it lowers the debtor’s overall borrowing costs by focusing the monitoring incentive in a
single creditor (who is rewarded for its monitoring efforts by being awarded priority): see S. Levmore,
“Monitors and Freeriders in Commercial and Consumer Settings” (1982) 92 Yale L.J 49 at 53-59.
However, as Shupack has observed, “it is not at all obvious how the general creditors are helped by
monitors whose advantage lies in the collateral rather than the debtor” (P.M. Shupack, “Defending
Purchase Money Security Interests Under Article 9 of the U.C.C. from Professor Buckley” (1989) 22
Ind. L. Rev. 777 at 782, n. 16). The Article 9 and PPSA regimes, by removing any incentive for the
secured party to exercise control over the debtor’s management of collateral of a shifting or circulat-
ing nature, can be seen to encourage specific monitoring of the collateral (of benefit to the secured
party only) rather than general monitoring of the debtor’s management of the collateral (of benefit to
all creditors).
204 Reln, supra note 200; Highfield Development v. Little-Borland Ltd. (1997), 154 Sask. R. 74,
[1997] 3 W.W.R. 472 (Q.B.); and Affinity International Inc. v. Alliance hzternational Corp. (1994), 96
Man. R. 200, (1994] 9 W.WR. 430 (Q.B.), aff’d (1995), 100 Man. R. (2d) 223 (C.A.), online QL
(MJ).
205 The development of automatic crystallisation clauses qualifies this point, but only partly. Such
clauses, making the charge crystallise on actions or events limited only by the parties’ imaginations,
provide a protection vulnerable to the inference, at the least, that the failure to intervene represents
waiver of the operation of the clause on the action or event in question. See H.A.J. Ford, R.P. Austin
& I.M. Ramsay, Ford’s Principles of Corporations Law, 8th ed. (Sydney: Butterworths, 1997) at 19-
220, 19-230.
.0 For the value of secured credit from a business governance perspective, see G.G. Triantis & R.J.
Daniels, “The Role of Debt in Interactive Corporate Governance” (1995) 83 Cal. L. Rev. 1073.
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M.G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
lustrated by a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision to which this article now
turns.
B. Implications of the Unitary Concept of Security Beyond the
PPSAs: Royal Bank of Canada v. Sparrow Electric Corp.
In Royal Bank of Canada v. Sparrow Electric Corp.’ the operations of the debtor,
an electrical contractor of substantial size, were financed by a bank which secured its
loans through two mechanisms: (i) the bank held a general PPSA security interest in
the debtor’s present and after-acquired personal property, and (ii) the bank held a se-
curity interest in the debtor’s inventory pursuant to section 427 of the Bank Act. In
1992, the debtor began to experience financial difficulties, and by August had been
given formal written notice of default by the bank. In October, a “standstill agree-
ment” was reached, allowing the debtor to continue its business in an effort to correct
the default, but empowering the bank to enforce its security forthwith if there was no
improvement. By November, the financial picture had not improved. The bank ap-
pointed a receiver and it was discovered that, during the greater part of 1992, the
debtor had not been setting aside and remitting payroll deductions for employee in-
come taxes as required by the federal Income Tax Act.” The amounts that should have
been withheld and remitted had instead been used as part of the general working
capital of the business, artificially extending its economic viability past the point of de
facto insolvency. In January 1993, the receiver obtained the court’s permission to sell
the debtor’s remaining inventory. However, the Court ordered that an amount equiva-
lent to that owing to the federal government-some $626,000-be set aside pending
resolution of the priority of its claim as against the bank’s claim which was in excess
of $1.6 million.
The government’s claim to the proceeds of the debtor’s inventory was based on
the then section 227(5) of the Income Tax Act which established a deemed trust in fa-
vour of the government.” Under section 227(4) of the Income Tax Act, an employer
’07 [1997] 1 S.C.R. 411, 143 D.L.R. (4th) 385 [hereinafter Sparrow cited to S.C.R.]. The decision
has already been the subject of a commentary: K. Davis, “Priority of Crown Claims in Insolvency:
Royal Bank of Canada v. Sparrow Electric Corp. and its Aftermath” (1997) 29 Can. Bus. L.J. 145.
For a comment on the Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision in this case cited favourably by both the
majority and minority at the Supreme Court level, see R.J. Wood, “Revenue Canada’s Deemed Trust
Extends its Tentacles: Royal Bank of Canada v. Sparrow Electric Corp.” (1996) 10 B.EL.R. 429.
2 s R.S.C. 1985 (5th Supp.), c. 1, s. 153 (1)(a), requiring employers to withhold from remuneration
paid to employees prescribed amounts on account of the employee’s tax for the year and to remit
these amounts to the Receiver General at prescribed intervals. Some 87% of personal taxes in Canada
are collected in this way.
209 Income Tax Act, ibid., s. 227(4) was amended by S.C. 1994, c. 21, s. 104(1) to add a statutory
lien and charge in favour of the Crown against all the property and assets of the tax debtor. Of greater
interest is the new s. 227(5), added by S.C. 1996, c. 21, s. 57(1), in force June 20, 1996, the effect of
which is to hold a “specified person” having direct or indirect influence over the property and dis-
bursements of the tax debtor personally responsible for unremitted source deductions where the speci-
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who deducts income tax owed by its employees is deemed to hold the relevant
amounts in trust for the benefit of the Crown. In the normal course of events, the de-
ductions are made, paid into a discrete trust fund, and promptly remitted to the
Crown. In practice, however, the deductions may be nothing more than a notional
book entry, whereby the monies that should have been withheld and remitted are mis-
appropriated by the debtor and intermingled with other assets which are then utilized
elsewhere in the business to meet more pressing obligations. At this point, the
Crown’s interest under a conventional trust analysis is that of a beneficiary under a
non-existent trust. It is this conceptual difficulty that section 227(5) of the Income Tax
Act was enacted to resolve. Section 227(5) stipulates that, on the assignment, receiver-
ship, or bankruptcy of the employer, an amount equal to the amount deemed to be
held in trust is deemed to be held separate and apart from the employer’s estate and as
such forms no part thereof. The section effectively seeks to attach a trust in favour of
the Crown ex post facto to whatever assets the employer presently holds, and to make
these assets the property of the Crown retroactive to the point at which the claim for
deductions arose.
Although the bank’s claim was based on both its PPSA and Bank Act security in-
terests, the PPSA does not apply directly to non-consensual security interests of the
kind created by the Income Tax Act. Nor does the PPSA purport to resolve priority in
the event that a consensual security interest created under its framework comes into
competition with such a non-consensual interest.”‘ The assumption of the drafters was
that such issues were really matters of public or state policy to be addressed in the
legislation establishing the non-consensual statutory interest. Where the relevant stat-
ute contains an explicit Crown priority rule, that should resolve the matter.”2 ‘ But sec-
tion 227 of the Income Tax Act, at least as it then read, stated nothing about the rela-
tive priority of the Crown’s section 227 claim in the highly predictable event that the
debtor’s assets were already the subject of a security agreement when Revenue Can-
ada’s claim arose.
Revenue Canada based its priority on two arguments. The first argument was
premised on the conventional property law repercussions of the distinction between
fled person authorizes or causes the payment of wages on which tax is payable and is required to be
withheld. Under s. 227(5.1), “specified person” is defined to include any form of receiver, liquidator,
or trustee of the tax debtor’s property and a secured party.
20 See e.g. New Brunswick PPSA, supra note 6, s. 4(a) excluding a lien, charge, or other interest
arising by operation of law from the scope of the PPSA unless the statute regulating the interest ex-
pressly states otherwise.
22. See e.g. the express priority provision in s. 224(1.2) of the Income TaxAct, supra note 208, under
which the Minister of National Revenue is empowered to require monies owing by a third party to a
tax debtor to be paid instead to the Receiver General. The provision specifies that on receipt of the
demand, the monies become the property of the Receiver General notwithstanding any security inter-
est in those monies and must be paid to the Receiver General in priority to any such security interest.
It was the scope of this provision that was in issue in Alberta (Treasury Branches), supra note 44. For
further analysis, see the text accompanying notes 170ff., above.
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M.G. BRIDGE, ETAL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
629
fixed and floating security interests.” ‘ The bank’s security interest, it was argued-at
least so far as it extended to inventory-was in the nature of a floating charge. As
such, it did not attach to the inventory until the charge was crystallized, at which point
the deemed trust for tax withholdings had already attached. The second argument was
premised on an implied contractual waiver of priority by the bank. Even if the charge
was characterized as fixed and specific from its inception so as to have attached to the
inventory before the deemed trust,”3 the bank had tacitly ceded its priority by licens-
ing the debtor to deal freely with its inventory and the proceeds from its disposition in
the ordinary course of business.
Although the Supreme Court was divided in the result, the majority and minority
opinions were ad idem on the first issue regarding the proprietary character of the
bank’s security interest: it was fixed and legal in nature. It was conceded that the ap-
plication of that characterization to a charge on inventory-a dynamic collection of
present and future assets-challenged traditional notions of the fixed charge which
emphasized the ability to settle on specific assets. The distinction between floating
and fixed security was rooted in pre-PPSA property law doctrine. In a PPSA regime,
all security interests attach on execution of the security agreement and the debtor’s
acquisition of rights in the collateral. This is regardless of whether the collateral is
specific or circulating, present or after-acquired, and regardless of the scope of the
debtor’s licence to deal.”‘1 Thus, in establishing a unitary attachment regime independ-
ent of the concept of crystallization, the PPSA legislatures intended that all security
interests be treated as equal in their proprietary effect, and as such, be presumptively
entitled to priority on a first-in-time basis.
It was regarding the second argument, the impact of the debtor’s licence to deal
with the collateral, that the Court split. The argument that the existence of such li-
cences constitutes an implicit waiver of first-in-time priority originates in the decision
of McLachlin J.A. (as she then was) in R. v. EB.D.B”5 At issue was the priority be-
212 For further analysis, see the text accompanying notes 183ff., above.
21’ Like the other Canadian PPSAs, the Alberta PPSA, supra note 6, s. 12(1) provides that a security
interest attaches only once the debtor has rights in the collateral.
214 Although the Court in Sparrow did not find it necessary to deal with the nature of the bank’s in-
terest in the inventory under its s. 427 Bank Act security, there is convincing authority that is likewise
to be characterized as fixed from the outset, i.e., as attaching to the collateral immediately, notwith-
standing that the arrangement would be classified as floating in nature under a common law property
rights approach: see Ford Motor, supra note 173. Moreover, the Bank’s security interest, like a PPSA
security interest, is thought to extend to the proceeds of sale of the inventory (although by implication
and not by explicit statutory provision, as in the case of the PPSA): see Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce v. Surkan (1978), 5 Alta. L.R. (2d) 323, 11 A.R. 556 (Dist. Ct.); Roynat Inc. v. Ja Sha
Trucking & Leasing Ltd (1992), 10 C.B.R. (3d) 41 at para. 18, 89 D.L.R. (4th) 405 (Man C.A.); and
Kernel Farms, supra note 108. However, the implied tracing rights of the bank, unlike the express
tracing rights of a PPSA secured party, terminate on disposition of the proceeds to a bona fide pur-
chaser for value without notice and are subject to equitable set-off rights: see Mercantile Bank, supra
note 108.
215 (1987), 43 D.L.R. (4th) 188, [19881 1 W.W.R. 1 (B.C.C.A.) [hereinafter RB.D.B.].
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tween a consensual security interest in inventory and its proceeds, and a statutory lien
securing provincial sales tax that had been collected by the debtor on the sale of the
inventory but not remitted to the government. In awarding priority in the proceeds to
the tax lien claimant, McLachlin J.A. reasoned that since a licence to sell inventory
necessarily encompasses a licence to satisfy obligations incidental to such sales-
such as the payment of sales tax-the secured creditor must be taken to have tacitly
ceded priority to the tax lien claimant in the amount of the taxes collected and not re-
mitted from the proceeds.
In refusing to extend the licence theory to encompass Revenue Canada’s deemed
trust for employee source deductions, the majority in Sparrow distinguished the
EB.D.B. decision on two grounds. First, in the case of sales taxes, there is at least a di-
rect connection between the claim for taxes and the subject matter of the deemed
trust, namely, the proceeds of sale of the inventory.” ‘ In contrast, the payment of in-
come tax on employee wages is not a necessary incident of the sale of inventory. At
best, a connection between proceeds and the payment of employee wages exists if the
debtor is authorized not merely to sell inventory but to apply the proceeds of that sale
to the payment of wages. The debtor’s licence in Sparrow extended that far. In the
majority’s view, however, this did not assist Revenue Canada. The inventory to which
its deemed trust attached was not sold by the debtor pursuant to its licence to deal, but
by the receiver after the debtor’s default. The majority held:
There is a great difference between saying … that if a debtor sells inventory and
applies the proceeds to a debt to a third party, then the third party takes the pro-
ceeds free of any security interest and saying … that because a third party could
take the proceeds free of any security interest, no security interest exists in the
proceeds as against that third party.
2 7
The majority’s second, and for our purposes more significant, basis of distinction
related to the impact of the PPSA on the implied waiver theory. Whereas RB.D.B. had
been decided before the enactment of a PPSA in British Columbia, the security inter-
est in issue in Sparrow had been taken within the framework of the Alberta PPSA. In
a PPSA regime, security interests are presumptively ranked on a first-in-time basis re-
gardless of the nature of the collateral.” ‘ Even when the debtor is authorized to dis-
pose of the collateral, the statute does not contemplate defeasance of the security in-
terest unless and until the collateral is actually sold. It is at this point that the security
interest, along with the secured party’s priority ranking, automatically transfers to the
proceeds.29 Taken to its logical conclusion, the licence theory would effectively evis-
26 In maintaining room for a possible exception in cases where there is a direct connection between
the security interest and the asset, the majority may have been preserving room for maintaining the
super-priority inherent in a supplier’s reservation of ownership notwithstanding the PPSA’s unitary
theory of security in cases outside the PPSA framework where that theory is still employed. For fur-
ther discussion, see the text accompanying notes 63ff., above.
2t7Sparrow, supra note 207 at 426 [emphasis in original].
21Alberta PPSA, supra note 6, s. 35.
219 Ibid., s. 28.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
cerate the ability of a secured party in inventory or accounts to rely on its first-in-time
ranking. In such transactions, it was essential to the continued economic viability of
the debtor that it be left free to use the collateral in the ordinary course of business.
However, if every authorized use of the collateral was interpreted as a waiver of prior-
ity, the last claimant would effectively become the first only because the last claimant
would not be subject to some subsequent claim arising in the ordinary course of busi-
ness.
At a broader policy level, the majority considered any extension in the licence
theory to be antithetical to the desire of the PPSA legislators to enhance commercial
accessibility to credit by minimizing uncertainty in the resolution of priority disputes.
Moreover, the Court considered issues of priority to be policy-charged. For both these
reasons, the Court believed that judicial innovation in this area should be discouraged.
The Court was of the view that legislative rules were more reliable sources of policy
and were apt to be clearer than judicially developed standards based on such open-
ended concepts as a “licence to deal”, the precise bounds of which would become
clear only through expensive and lengthy litigation.”0
The minority opinion acknowledged the values of certainty and predictability in
the determination of priority, particularly in light of the contemporary enactment of
statutory priority regimes. It attempted to meet that objection by limiting the scope of
the waiver implicit in the existence of a licence to sell inventory. The critical issue was
not the existence of the licence as such, but the limits imposed by the secured party on
the range of uses to which the proceeds from the sale of inventory might be put. It was
one thing if a secured party required the debtor to remit the proceeds and actually
monitored the debtor’s behaviour to ensure that the proceeds were dealt with as di-
rected. In such cases, there could be no presumption of a waiver of priority against
third parties. However, in Sparrow the secured party was the debtor’s principal finan-
cier, its main source of general working capital, and it held a security interest not just
in the debtor’s inventory, but in all the debtor’s business assets as well. Unless the
debtor was able to use the proceeds generated by its business to pay wages and to
meet other ordinary course of business obligations, its economic viability was lost. In
these circumstances, the all-assets financier must be taken to have implicitly con-
sented to the use of the collateral to meet all ordinary course of business obligations,
including the payment of wages and statutory withholdings from wages. Indeed, the
secured party in this case had explicitly authorized the debtor to use the proceeds
from inventory to pay taxes and other assessments when due, and had in fact required
the debtor to covenant that it would do so. In so doing, the secured party must be
taken to have bound itself to observe the statutory incidents attaching to the deduc-
tions, i.e., section 227(5) of the Income Tax Act under which the debtor’s assets be-
came superimposed with a trust to secure the deductions.
2″ Sparrow, supra note 207.
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At the level of distributional fairness, the minority opinion is attractive. Revenue
Canada is a non-consensual creditor.”2 ‘ It cannot refuse to extend credit on income tax
withholdings to employers who pose unusual credit risks. Its right to be paid depends
upon the employer’s observation of its statutory obligations. If the employer misap-
propriates the withholdings and applies them to the payment of other debt or other
business obligations, the effect is to artificially increase the debtor’s supply of work-
ing capital. The temptation to misappropriate funds is at its highest when the debtor
is, as in Sparrow, encountering financial difficulties and its regular lender is unwilling
to take on any additional risk. The subordination of Revenue Canada effectively trans-
forms it into a financier of emergency working capital. This financing is, in essence,
provided to the debtor’s business against Revenue Canada’s volition, without its
knowledge, and without the kind of increased risk controls and premiums that a con-
sensual financier would be likely to demand in the same circumstances. As a potential
involuntary supplier of emergency capital, Revenue Canada is surely entitled to pro-
tect itself by legislating super-priority rights in the debtor’s business assets.
In the wake of Sparrow, the federal government has in fact signalled its intention
to amend the Income Tax Act so as to clarify its super-priority for income tax with-
holdings over prior consensual secured creditors. 2 Presumably, this will encourage
closer monitoring by secured creditors to ensure that the debtors observe their income
tax remission obligations. More significantly, the debtor will no longer have access to
the money represented by those obligations to artificially extend its business opera-
tions past the point of defacto insolvency. This benefits the debtor’s unsecured credi-
tors. The longer an insolvent debtor is allowed to remain in business, the more debt it
is likely to accumulate vis-ei-vis trade suppliers, utility providers, and the like. Conse-
quently, the monitoring incentive created by the threat of subordination to Revenue
Canada increases the likelihood that the debtor’s principal financier will enforce its
security at the point of de facto insolvency, thereby reducing the ability of a failing
debtor to increase unsecured debt which it has no hope of repaying.
221 See generally “Unsecured Creditor’s Bargain”, supra note 11. See also “Priority of Secured
Claims”, supra note 8.
2 Department of Finance Canada News Release, online:
1994. The amendments to s. 227(4), (4. 1) of the Income Tax Act, supra note 208, would give Revenue
Canada, to the extent of unremitted deductions, a beneficial interest in the property of the debtor, in-
cluding property that, but for the interest of a secured party (as defined by the Act), would be the
property of the debtor, which is deemed to be held separate and apart from the debtor’s other property
and which has priority over the interest of any such secured creditor, notwithstanding any other law.
The Ministerial statement associated with these changes points to the way current law credits employ-
ees with amounts that ought to have been deducted regardless of whether that has occurred, amounts
that in any event are to be paid over by the federal government to the relevant province party to the
Federal/Provincial Tax Collection Agreements.
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
C. Conclusions
Sparrow confirms that the PPSA’s unitary concept of security is not confined to
the PPSA framework, but has, and will have, a profound impact on the administration
and evolution of secured transactions law in general. What is most disquieting about
the decision in Sparrow is the Court’s recourse to conventional property characteriza-
tions-albeit as informed by the statutory incidents attached to the conventional prop-
erty categories-to justify what amounts to a transfer of creative responsibility for the
overall setting of insolvency distribution policy, from the realm of private ordering to
the realm of public policy.2″ As such, Sparrow confirms the transformation from a
property interest rooted in the form of the legal institution selected by the parties to a
status-based privilege rooted in statutory law. This transformation is effected by a
unitary theory of security.
A better approach, which is more consistent with the subtlety that property analy-
sis instantiates, would have revolved around the competing statutory policies in op-
eration, and the ineluctable need for the judiciary to work in order to accommodate
those policies.’4
Ill. Understanding English Resistance to the Call of Article 9
A. Introduction
Now we move away from the Article 9 and PPSA world to a jurisdiction whose
law grounded that of the Canadian provinces before they embarked upon the PPSA
enterprise. England has thus far resisted the call of Article 9 and, as will be noted,
there is no real prospect of change. English law can, nevertheless, help one to better
understand the tradition with which Article 9 broke, as well as sharpen one’s appre-
ciation of the analysis of functionalism that we have been pursuing thus far.
In England, there is no general concept of a “security interest” as that expression
would be understood in Article 9 and PPSA jurisdictions. Security is differentiated
from title retention and understood in a strict , sense as consisting of certain types,
. See Ford Motor, supra note 173, where the court awarded priority to Revenue Canada on facts
very similar to Sparrow. The decision was subsequently reversed by the Supreme Court of Canada in
light of its intervening ruling in Sparrow. Nevertheless, it is instructive to compare Jackson J’s rea-
soning in Ford Motor with the analytical approach taken by the Supreme Court in Sparrow. In her
view, property rights analysis was inapposite and artificial to resolve a priority dispute between com-
peting “security interests” created by separate legislative regimes, preferring an approach that con-
strued the statutes in question and their competing policies rather than one which attempted to char-
acterize the interests.
224For just such an effort, now overruled, see Ford Motor, ibicL
2’5Occasionally, there will be frank judicial recognition that something which is not really a security
in fact operates as though it were: see e.g. Banque Financi~re de la Citif v. Parc (Battersea) Ltd.
(1998), [1999] A.C. 221, [1998] 1 All E.R. 737 (H.L.) [hereinafter Battersea cited to All E.R.], where
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each with its own characteristics. According to classic analysis, English law knows of
only three nominate consensual securities: the mortgage, the charge, and the pledge.”6
A mortgage that complies with the necessary forms and deals with property that exists
at common law will be a legal mortgage, otherwise it will be an equitable mortgage.
A charge exists only in Equity, while a pledge is a common law creation (though oc-
casionally the question has been raised whether there can be an equitable pledge). The
legal or equitable status of a security does not matter when the security is asserted
against unsecured creditors or their insolvency representatives, but will frequently
matter when it comes to determining priority contests among secured creditors. Apart
from this, there is rarely any practical significance in the distinction between mort-
gages and charges, and the distinction between them is commonly eliminated in the
drafting of debentures.2 ‘ Consequently, the English law of security is more appropri-
ately divided into the non-possessory-which mortgage and charge do not have to be
but usually are-and the possessory. As a possessory security, pledge is confined for
business purposes to documentary intangibles, such as share certificates and bills of
lading, and is usually of a short-term nature. The word is increasingly used nowadays
in a loose sense when referring to non-possessory security over dematerialised and
immobilised shares and bonds held in systems such as Euroclear (in Brussels) and
Cedel (in Luxembourg).
Any survey of the security position of creditors would, however, be seriously de-
ficient if it failed to mention certain security rights arising by operation of law. Like
consensual security, they provide the creditor with a resource additional to member-
ship of the dividend pool on the debtor’s insolvency. Statute law provides a number of
such instances.2 . while the common law supplies well-known examples like special
an undertaking given to an unsecured creditor-that a secured creditor would postpone its right to be
paid by the debtor until the unsecured creditor had been paid-was treated as a form of security for
the purpose of the doctrine of subrogation (see ibid. at 752, Lord Hutton). In fact, the contract con-
taining the undertaking did not bind the secured creditor but, because the secured creditor was un-
justly enriched in consequence of the unsecured creditor’s advance to the debtor, the restitutionary
outcome was (supposedly) the same as if the contract had been held binding on the secured creditor.
226 In Re Cosslett (Contractors) Ltd., [1997] 4 All E.R. 115 at 126, [1996] 3 W.L.R. 299 (C.A.),
Millett L.J. includes in the numerus clausus of consensual securities a “contractual lien”. In so far as
the lien arises contextually in contractual relationships by operation of law, then it is not a consensual
security. It may, however, be a case of a general lien, building contractually upon the narrower inci-
dents of a special lien arising by operation of law: see infra note 228. Although the matter cannot be
regarded as beyond dispute, it has recently been held that a general lien created by contract in this
way does not have to be registered as a company charge: see Re Hamlet International plc, [1998] All
E.R. 83, [1998] 2 B.C.L.C. 164 (Ch.D.).
.2. See London County and Westminster Bank v. Tompkins, [1918] 1 K.B. 515, 87 L.J.K.B. 662
(C.A.); and Re Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A. (No. 8), [1996] Ch. 245, [1996] 2 All
E.R. 121 (C.A.) [hereinafter Re Bank of Credit].
2.8 See e.g. Civil Aviation Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 16, s. 88 (right to detain aircraft for unpaid air-
port services). See also BristolAirportplc v. Powdrill (1989), [1990] Ch. 744, [1990] 2 All E.R. 493
(C.A.) [hereinafter Bristol Airport]; and Marine Insurance Act, 1906 (U.K.), 6 & 7 Edw., c. 41, s.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
635
and general liens’ and the landlord’s right to distrain chattels found upon the leased
premises.’ While these rights flow from status rather than contract, this is not to say
that the relationship between landlord and tenant, or between repairer and customer, is
just a matter of status. There will almost invariably be a contract supplemented by the
incidents of status. The common law, it would seem, is long past the age of creating
new status rights by way of lien. Moreover, rights of lien and distress fit awkwardly
into any scheme of rights based upon contract and are inevitably difficult to explain in
terms of the values of the modem law, especially when they bear upon the rights of
strangers to the accompanying contract.”
Other rights of a security or proprietary nature which are significant in a debtor’s
insolvency include equitable (non-possessory) liens (which are imposed by law in
certain infrequent and unpredictable cases2 ), trust rights of the Quistclose or other
similar type (which are voluntarily created”), and a range of proprietary rights im-
posed in accordance with restitutionary principles.’
It is not an easy matter to dis-
cover when a restitutionary right will extend beyond the personal to the proprietary
zone, and from a world of two parties to the world at large.” It cannot be imagined
that the law will encourage the expansion of proprietary claims in the pursuit of resti-
tutionary justice,”6 and yet there is little sign of a principled and general approach to
53(2). Regarding an insurance broker’s lien over the policy, see Eide UK Ltd. v. Lowndes Lambert
Group Ltd., [1998] 1 All E.R. 946, [1998] 3 W.L.R. 643 (C.A.).
2″ Special liens are granted to certain providers of services such as innkeepers and repairers for en-
titlements arising from the instant transaction: see Hatton v. Car Maintenance Company (1914),
[1915] 1 Ch. 621, [1911-13] All E.R. Rep. 890 (Ch.D.). General liens are granted to professionals,
such as solicitors, for all monies owing to them no matter when the services were rendered. A special
lien may be contractually expanded to a general lien, commonly done in the-case of carriers: see
George BarkerLtd. v. Eynon (1973), [1974] 1 All E.R. 900, [1974] 1 W.L.R. 462 (C.A.).
2’0 The landlord’s common law rights are restricted in various ways by the Law of Distress (Amend-
ment)Act, 1908 (U.K.), 7 & 8 Edw., c. 53.
2′ See Tappenden v.Artus (1963), [1964] 2 Q.B. 185, [1963] 3 All E.R. 213 (C.A.).
232 See Hewett v. Court (1983), 46 A.L.R. 87, 149 C.L.R. 639 (H.C. Aus.); and Transport and Gen-
eral Credit Corporation v. Morgan, [1939] Ch. 531, [1939] 2 All E.R. 17 (Ch.D.). See S. Worthing-
ton, Proprietary Interests in Commercial Transactions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) at c. 9.
” Quistclose, supra note 150. See also Re Kayford Ltd., [1975] 1 All E.R. 604, [1975] 1 W.L.R.
279 (Ch.D.).
For a general statement of the availability of personal and proprietary remedies in restitution, see
e.g. A. Burrows, The Law of Restitution (London: Butterworths, 1993) at 28-29.
2″ Consider the difference between recovering money (personal) and recovering goods (proprietary)
when a contract is rescinded for misrepresentation. See e.g. M.G. Bridge, The Sale of Goods (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997) at 361-64 [hereinafter Sale of Goods].
“6 See Re Goldcorp Exchange Ltd., [1995] 1 A.C. 74, [1994] 3 W.L.R. 199. (P.C.) where, given the
absence of certainty of the subject matter, the Privy Council refused to infer a trust from statements by
a gold depositary that it held gold for various investors. A similar caution in the creation of proprie-
tary restitutionary rights is apparent in Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v. Islington LB.C.,
[1996] A.C. 669, 2 All E.R. 961 (H.L.) and in Battersea, supra note 225, where the House of Lords
granted a personal right, not a real subrogation right, to an unsecured lender mistaken in its belief that
a second secured lender would not seek repayment when monies were advanced so that a first secured
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this issue at the higher judicial levels. This will doubtless happen when the creative
rush evident in the recent manufacture of a modem law of restitution has died down.
The manufacture of restitutionary proprietary rights would not threaten to undermine
the principle of pari passu distribution to unsecured creditors in insolvency, for that
principle has already been subverted by the ease with which security rights may be
obtained. Rather, the creditors threatened by restitutionary proprietary rights are, first,
preferred creditors, ” and secondly, secured creditors, unless their claims as subse-
quent bona fide purchasers of the legal estate without notice override a restitutionary
right of an equitable character. 8 Unsecured creditors will take no comfort from com-
pelling a restitutionary claimant to join their ranks if preferred or secured creditors, or
both, will, in any event, scoop up the debtor’s assets.
Finally, any round-up of security and its cognates in English law would be very
much incomplete if it failed to take into account title reservation clauses as bargained
for by trade suppliers as well as by banks and finance houses supplying equipment on
hire-purchase, lease, and conditional sale terms. The power of restitutionary proprie-
tary rights and title reservation clauses lies in the fact that they circumscribe the assets
which can be used to give security or which can be distributed to creditors upon the
debtor’s insolvency.”9 Consequently, there is no priority conflict as such to resolve
between holders of restitutionary proprietary rights or title reservations and secured
creditors, and therefore no practical legal medium through which to assess the com-
peting merits of any such claimants.
The finite vision of consensual security, stated above, as confined to mortgage,
charge, and pledge is not laid down in any code or statute. Nor are there sweeping ju-
dicial statements condemning any attempt to manufacture new security concepts.
Needless to say, no code or statute exists laying down a numerus clausus of consen-
sual security devices. Legal creativity, for reasons that will be made obvious, has not
been concerned with the manufacture of novel types of consensual security. There are
no appreciable restrictions on the assets that may be subjected to one of the three
nominate consensual securities. For the most part, the rights of the creditor are de-
fined by the terms of the contract that the creditor is (usually) able to impose upon the
lender could be paid in part. Nevertheless, the Privy Council, departing in this respect from Lister v.
Stubbs (1890), 45 Ch.D. 1, [1886-90] All E.R. Rep. 797 (C.A.), has recently ruled that a principal has
a proprietary remedy against an agent who has received a bribe: see Attorney General for Hong Kong
v. Reid, [ 1994] 1 A.C. 324, [1994] 1 All E.R. 1 (P.C.). The House of Lords has also, for ease of distri-
bution of monies in a reinsurance case, granted proprietary rights in Lord Napier and Ettrick v.
Hunter, [1993] A.C. 713, [1993] 1 All E.R. 385 (H.L.).
237 Listed in hIsolvency Act 1986 (U.K.), 1986, c. 45, s. 386 and Schedule 6.
23 8 For example, a later creditor taking a legal mortgage of the property in question. See also Taylor
v. Blakelock (1886), 32 Ch.D. 560,56 L.J Ch. 390 (C.A.).
” They necessarily rank ahead of consensual secured creditors. Sellers claiming the benefit of title
reservation clauses are vulnerable to exceptions to the rule of nemo dat quod non habet, notably the
buyer in possession exception in s. 25 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (U.K.), 1979, c. 54. Restitution-
ary property rights of an equitable (but not common law) character are more broadly vulnerable to the
claims of bonafide purchasers of the legal estate without notice and for value.
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debtor. For various reasons, such as the priority battle with secured creditors and the
need to create off-balance-sheet financing, legal ingenuity has largely gone into de-
fining the attributes of a particular type of security right,’0 and into creating proprie-
tary and title rights of one kind or another.
B. The Importance of Title
Title reservation has long played an important role in reinforcing creditors’ per-
sonal rights against debtors. As stated above, it is more important to define “property”
than its sub-category, “proprietary security”, in matters of insolvency distribution. As
we have seen, a superficial reading of Article 9 and the PPSAs encourages the belief
that title has been demystified by assimilating it to security. So triumphant appears the
functionalist ethic that the drafters were able to allow contracting parties to call their
arrangement whatever they liked, since the functional definition of security would, in
any event, overrule their efforts. It was unnecessary to proscribe contracting on con-
ditional sale and similar terms since conceptual differences flowing from the various
terms would not be recognized. Nevertheless, as was duly noted above, the visceral
importance of property, in the form of title reservation, breaks through in important
areas. This is particularly apparent in the way that the functional definition of “secu-
rity” is reluctantly applied as in the areas of leasing transactions”‘ and the Quistclose
trust.2′
A survey of the importance of title in English law should not be confined to mat-
ters of insolvency distribution. In the law of sale of goods, the seller’s implied under-
taking that he has a right to sell the goods is defined in the legislation as a contractual
condition.” In fact, it is more than just a condition. So important is this obligation
that, upon breach by the seller, a buyer who has paid part or all of the price in advance
may recover it in full regardless of the rules dealing with the treatment of conditions
as ex post facto warranties.’ For the purpose of the restitutionary action for the recov-
240 A striking recent example is Re New Bullas Trading Ltd., [1994] 1 B.C.L.C. 485, [1994] B.C.C.
36 (C.A.) [hereinafter Re New Bullas cited to B.C.L.C.].
“‘ This is a common problem in defining the range of modem personal property security legislation.
242 See Ziegel & Denomme, supra note 6 at 63. See also the curious and unsuccessful way that it
was argued that a Quistclose advance gave rise to a registrable company charge in England: Carreras
Rothman Ltd. v. Freeman Mathews Treasure (1984), [1985] Ch. 207, [1985] 1 All E.R. 155 (Ch.D.).
2” Sale of Goods Act 1979, supra note 239, s. 12(1), (5A), the latter added by the Sale and Supply of
Goods Act 1994 (U.K.), 1994, c. 35.
See Sale of Goods Act 1979, ibicL, ss. 11(4), 35; Rowland v. Divall, [1923] 2 K.B. 500, [1923]
All E.R. Rep. 270 (C.A.); Warman v. Southern Counties Car Finance Corporation, [1949] 2 K.B.
576, [1949] 1 All E.R. 711 (K.B.D.); Butterworth v. Kingsway Motors, [1954] 2 All E.R. 694, [1954]
1 W.L.R. 1286 (Ch.D.); Barber v. NWS Bank plc, [1996] 1 All E.R 906 (C.A.), online: QL (NLOR).
The Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994, ibid., added a new 15(a) to the Sale of Goods Act 1979, ibid.,
preventing the non-consumer buyer from rejecting goods where the defect in them was so slight that it
would be unreasonable to reject them. This restriction was confined to the implied terms dealing with
description, quality, fitness, and equality to sample. It is noteworthy that it does not extend to the im-
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ery of money on a failure of consideration, “consideration” is defined as the lawful
benefit conferred by the seller onto the buyer. The actual use of the goods is not re-
garded as a qualifying benefit if the buyer may be ousted at any time from enjoyment
of the goods by the true owner. Again, the seller’s obligation may not as a matter of
law be excluded in the contract, even if the parties are commercial parties operating at
arm’s length.” This statutory manifestation of the fundamental breach doctrine has
survived the judicial abolition of its common law equivalent.'” Title exclusion re-
mains, however, distinct, but barely distinguishable, from a limited title sale by which
the parties are free to agree that the seller duly performs by conveying to the buyer
something that is, or may be less than, full ownership.”
In matters of insolvency distribution and competition with secured creditors, the
unpaid seller is free to manipulate the passing of property of the goods to the buyer in
order to secure payment of the price. At first sight, this represents a serious threat to
the all-encompassing security rights of the buyer’s bank and to the insolvency distri-
bution rights of preferred and unsecured creditors. The bank’s security cannot attach
to assets in the buyer’s hands that are still owned by the seller. Likewise, the buyer’s
insolvency representative has no right to deal with such assets. Furthermore, sellers
can achieve this result by the simple expedient of inserting a reservation of title clause
in their standard condition of sale contract. 8 There is no need to register,’ which
means that ordinary commercial sales can be executed from day to day without a law-
yer looking over the seller’s shoulder. These powerful title reservation rights belong-
ing to unpaid sellers have drawn fire from the buyer’s other creditors.’
Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the difficulties that liquidators and re-
ceivers can create, in practice, for sellers. Tracing the goods supplied to the buyer into
plied condition that the seller have a right to sell. If, therefore, a buyer has had the extensive use of
goods acquired on conditional sale terms and, just before payment of the final instalment, the buyer
discovers a breach of condition by the seller and rescinds the transaction, the buyer will be entitled to
recover all of the advance payments made as on a failure of consideration: see generally M.G. Bridge,
“The Title Obligations of the Seller of Goods” in N. Palmer & E. McKendrick, eds., Interests in
Goods, 2d ed. (London: Lloyds of London Press, 1998) c. 12.
… Unfair Contract Tenns Act 1977 (U.K.), 1977, c. 50, s. 6(1)(a).
..6 Photo Production v. Securicor Transport, [19801 A.C. 827, [1980] 1 All E.R. 556 (H.L.).
.47 Sale of Goods Act 1979, supra note 239, s. 12(1), (3). See Sale of Goods, supra note 235 at c. 10.
In the case of a sale of shares, the parties may agree on a full title or limited title sale and are also free
to exclude any title obligation at all: see the Law of Properly (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1994
(U.K.), 1994, c. 36, ss. 2, 3, 8(1). Although this Act (which applies also to land) extends to personal
property without reservation (s. 1(4)), it does not appear to affect the rules governing sale of goods
agreements.
2,’ Even if acting in breach of contract, a seller has the power, acting unilaterally, to do this. Ac-
cording to the Sale of Goods Act 1979, ibid, s. 19, a “seller may, by the terms of the contract or ap-
propriation, reserve the right of disposal of the goods until certain conditions are fulfilled” [emphasis
added].
245 Under U.C.C. 9-302(l)(d), a similar freedom from filing is given to the purchase money finan-
” See “Cork Committee Report”, supra note 11 at c. 27.
cier of consumer goods.
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the buyer’s possession may be a matter of some difficulty.”5′ Furthermore, as the dust
has settled in the wake of the decision in Aluminium Industrie Vaaseen R. Vv. Ro-
malpa Aluminium,”2 which focused attention on the ability of sellers to help them-
selves by means of title reservation clauses, it has become clear that sellers’ rights are
more limited than first thought. Various attempts have been made by sellers to “re-
serve” title in goods manufactured by the buyer with materials supplied by the seller.
Robert Goff L.J. was of the view that a competently drafted clause could achieve this
effect;”3 however, the practical outcome of a series of later cases has put it beyond
doubt that “extended” title reservation clauses will not work. A buyer who manufac-
tures a new product out of goods supplied by the seller thereupon becomes the owner
of the new thing. Any contractual clause that treats the seller as the owner will there-
fore amount to a grant back from the buyer and is therefore a registrable charge. ‘
Attempts to treat the buyer as the seller’s agent in disposing of the goods supplied to
the buyer or of new goods have met a similar fate. Any rights conferred by the con-
tract over book debts due from the sub-buyer will be judicially characterised as the
product of a charge over those debts. A buyer cannot, by a stroke of the draftsman’s
pen, be treated as an agent or other fiduciary if commercial reality points to an arm’s
length relationship of seller and buyer.’5
On one view, the seller’s efforts are not completely unsuccessful. The seller with
an extended title reservation clause is left with a charge. However, the cramp imposed
by the law on taking security for future advances,” coupled with the absence of a
simple notice filing system, has for all practical purposes conferred upon sellers rights
that they cannot protect by registration. Given the brief industrial life of raw materials
and the rapid depreciation of capital goods-especially of computer and similar
“‘ Tales are told of receivers and liquidators inviting sellers to rummage among a mountain of nuts
and bolts to recover those that they supplied.
252 [1976] 2 All E.R. 552, [1976] 1 W.L.R. 676 (C.A.).
2″ Clough Mill v. Martin (1984), [1985] 1 W.L.R. 111, [1985] B.C.L.C. 64 (C.A.). See also Borden
(U.K.) Ltd. v. Scottish 7mber Products (1979), [1981] Ch. 25, [1979] 3 All E.R. 961 (C.A.), Buckley
L.J.
2” Re Peachdart Ltd. (1983), [1984] Ch. 131, [1983] 3 All E.R. 204 (Ch.D.).
25S E. Pfeiffer Weinkellerei-Weineinkauf G.mb.H. v. Arbuthnot Factors Ltd. (1987), [1988] 1 W.L.R.
150, [1987] B.C.L.C. 522 (Q.B.D.); and Tatung (U.K.) Ltd- v. Galex Telesure Ltda (1988), 5 B.C.C.
325 (Q.B.D.), online: LEXIS (ENGGEN/CASES).
m The Law of Property Act, 1925 (U.K.), 15 & 16 Geo. V, c. 20, s. 94, limits so-called “tacking” of
future advances onto pre-existing mortgages (which include charges: s. 205(1)(xvi)) to cases where
the mortgagee makes the advance pursuant to commitment, or has no notice of intervening mort-
gages, or has the consent of intervening mortgagees. If title reservation clauses had to be registered
under the present system, the seller would be at a disadvantage. A seller of goods on repeated occa-
sions could rely upon a single registration only if the contract were an output or similar type of con-
tract obliging the seller to supply goods as and when called for by the buyer. If the contract took the
form of a requirements contract, obliging the buyer to place orders with the seller, the goods would
not be supplied pursuant to commitment unless the seller were already bound to supply the goods
when ordered by the buyer. It is the seller’s commitment that would be necessary for a single registra-
tion; the buyer’s commitment is neither necessary nor sufficient.
640
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equipment-the threat posed by reservation of title clauses both to banks as well as
preferred and unsecured creditors has proved, in the end, to be a relatively modest one.
In matters of reservation of title, English law has now moved into calmer waters. ‘
C. Artificiality
If English law were hostile to artificial transactions, this could well produce calls
for law reform in the credit industry. However, English law is not a law of narrow
nominate categories. A system of law that largely lacks nominate contracts was never
likely to define security transactions in terms that blocked legal creativity. The most
prominent feature of the law in this area is freedom of contract. Secured lending takes
place on terms proffered by the banks and prepared by the leading City of London
law firms, with no opportunity afforded in practice to borrowers to negotiate terms. It
follows, therefore, that the economics of repeat transactions in an accommodating le-
gal system encourages the preparation of lengthy documents that give the banks every
advantage which experience and imagination can yield. The examination of a few ar-
tificial transactions captures the flavour and thrust of English law in the area of se-
cured transactions. The freedom thus accorded to powerful institutional lenders helps
to explain their evident opposition to any fundamental reform of the present system.
With the exception of charges masquerading as reservation of title clauses-and these
clauses protect the interests of trade creditors rather than major lenders-English law
has been receptive to the drafting of artificial agreements.
While artificiality may be condoned, the law has stopped short of countenancing
sham transactions.” The avoidance of sham transactions is accomplished when con-
tracting parties remain faithful, in fact, to the forms of the transaction that they con-
clude. The success of hire-purchase shows how undemanding the law has been in this
respect. It is well known that hire-purchase consists of the bailment for a term be-
tween the bailor, a financier, and a bailee who is seeking to acquire the subject matter
of the agreement on instalment terms. The bailee undertakes to pay hire for the use of
the chattel until, at the end of the stipulated term, the whole of the agreed sum due for
hire has been paid and the bailee is left with an option, usually exercised for a nomi-
nal fee, to purchase the chattel outright. A conjunction of a bailment with the payment
of hire at intervals, coupled with an option leading to a unilateral contract taking the
form of a sale, is hardly the most natural way to finance the acquisition of a chattel
that all along the bailee eventually wishes to acquire. Much more natural would have
27 There is a cloud on the horizon. The doctrine of tenancy in common has been strongly boosted in
recent times in sales law: see Re Stapylton Fletcher Ltd., [1994] 1 W.L.R. 1181, [1994] B.C.C. 532
(Ch.D.); Mercer v. Craven Grain Storage Ltd., [1994] C.L.C. 328 (H.L.), online: QL (HJ); and Sale
of Goods (Amendnent) Act 1995 (U.K.), 1995, c. 28. This points to an artful clause conferring on the
unpaid seller tenancy in common rights over newly manufactured goods. Whether such a clause
would escape characterisation as a registrable charge is uncertain.
2’ See Polsky v. S. & A. Services (1950), [1951] 1 All E.R. 185, [1951] W.N. 136 (K.B.D.); and
Snook v. London & West Riding Investments Ltd., [1967] 2 Q.B. 786, [1967] 1 All E.R. 518 (C.A.).
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
been a conditional sale contract containing the buyer’s commitment to purchase at the
outset with payment taking place according to an incremental plan for a set period of
time.
The reason for the artificial formula of hire-purchase was mainly twofold: bailors
sought to avoid having the bailee treated as a buyer in possession under factors and
similar legislation dealing with title disputes between owners and good faith purchas-
ers.” At the same time, bailors did not want to structure the transaction as a security
bill of sale for that would bring in a complex body of legislation designed to do two
things: (i) to protect the borrowing bailee from catching behaviour by grasping credi-
tors, and (ii) to protect the bailee’s other creditors from the deceptive impact of his
apparent ownership of chattels in his possession 2 In two decisions rendered in 1895,
the House of Lords gave financing bailors everything they desired. 1 In Helby,62 the
bailee was not a buyer in possession.63 At no time during the existence of legal rela-
tions between bailor and bailee had the latter agreed to purchase the chattel. The
bailee was never committed, but only had an option to purchase the chattel. This op-
tion was contingent until the hire had been paid in full but was obviously larger as the
bailment came to the end of its term. When all the instalments had been paid, it might
make overwhelming economic sense to purchase a chattel that far exceeded in value
the cost of exercising the option, but it still could not be said that the buyer had “agreed”
to buy the chattel. In McEntire,” the transaction was not a security bill of sale because at
no point had the bailee been the owner of the chattel such that it could be regarded as the
subject of a grant to the bailor. This would be so whether the financing bailor had as-
signed to it the benefit of a hire-purchase agreement already concluded between a mer-
chant bailor and the bailee, or whether the merchant sold the chattel to the bailor imme-
diately before the latter bailed it on instalment terms. Structured in this artful way, hire-
purchase did not tell a lie. It would be a different matter, of course, if someone who was
already the owner of a chattel wished to use it to raise financing by entering into an
agreement that on its face was a hire-purchase agreement.”5
… The relevant legislation at the time was the Sale of Goods Act, 1893 (U.K.), 56 & 57 Vict., c. 71,
2″0 Bills of Sale Act, 1878 (U.K.) 41 & 42 Vict., c. 31; and Bills of Sale Act 1878 (Amendment) Act,
s. 25(2); and the Factors Act, 1889 (U.K.), 52 & 53 Vict., c. 45, s. 9.
1882 (U.K.) 45 & 46 Vict., c. 43.
2 6 Helby v. Matthews, [1895] A.C. 471, [1895-9] All E.R. Rep. 821 (H.L.) [hereinafter Helby]; and
McEntire v. Crossley Bros., [1895] A.C. 457, [1895-9] All E.R. Rep. 829 (H.L.) [hereinafter McEn-
tire].262 ibid.
2’3 See also Lee v. Butler, [1893] 2 Q.B. 318, [1891-4] All E.R. Rep. 1200 (C.A.) (commitment to
buy). In Forthright Finance Ltd. v. Carlyle Finance Ltd., [1997] 4 All E.R. 90, [1997] C.C.L.R. 84
(C.A.), an agreement, though called a hire-purchase, was held to be a conditional sale since it required
the “hirer” to pay all instalments and deemed the option to be exercised unless the “hirer” gave prior
notice that this was not to be the case.
2″ Supra note 261.
2
‘6 But see Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Co. v. North Central Wagon Co. (1888),
13 A.C. 554 (H.L.) where, under a refinancing scheme, a second financier bought out the interest of a
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A different example of the law’s tolerance of artificiality is afforded by a recent
Court of Appeal decision.” In so far as this case rewards legal ingenuity, it has a natu-
ral tendency to quell demands from secured creditors for the reform of the law. The
case concerned a financier extending credit to ease the cash flow problems of a manu-
facturer exporting computer software and having to wait for payment from its over-
seas customers. The natural form of a transaction of this kind would be for the finan-
cier to purchase, or take a charge over, the accounts generated by these overseas sales.
For unstated but predictable reasons, the financier wished instead to take an interest in
the software before it generated accounts receivable. It did so by purchasing the soft-
ware outright. This ensured that the financier would not be in competition with other
creditors who had security over the accounts or the inventory of the manufacturer.
The scheme worked as follows. When an export sale was arranged, the manufac-
turer sold the inventory in question to the financier before selling it to the overseas
buyer as agent for the undisclosed principal, i.e., the financier. The manufacturer’s
authority to bind the principal was confined to cases where the software attained the
warranty standards required by the overseas sale contract. Moreover, although pay-
ment by the overseas buyer was made to the manufacturer, it was paid into an account
that in reality was controlled by the financier. These precautions served to insulate the
financier from the realities of dealing with overseas buyers whilst preserving the form
of the transaction adopted by manufacturer and financier. In the brief period between
selling the software to the financier and reselling it as agent to the overseas buyer, the
manufacturer could be regarded as holding the software as bailee for the financier in
accordance with a constructive delivery of the software to the financier. The transac-
tional form may have told a far-fetched story, but it did not tell a lie.
Another example of artificiality that comforts institutional lenders concerns the
so-called “lightweight” floating charge.6’ This is perhaps the best example of English
law creating a climate receptive to the interests of institutional lenders. The light-
weight floating charge responds to the apparently conflicting interests of a secured
lender seeking to maximise its priority rights against other creditors-secured, pre-
ferred, and unsecured-whilst simultaneously fending off any attempts to appoint an
administrator under Part 2 of the Insolvency Act 1986.” Briefly, the priority rules fa-
vour fixed charges over floating charges, even if the latter are granted earlier in time. ‘
first financier in railway rolling stock and also made a further advance. This was held not be a regis-
trable bill of sale.
” Welsh Development Agency v. Export Finance Co. Ltd, [1991] B.C.L.C. 148, [1991] B.C.C. 270
(C.A.). Compare the sale and resale case of Re Curtain Dream Plc., [1990] B.C.L.C. 925, [1990]
B.C.C. 341 (Ch.D.).
29 Re Castell & Brown Ltd., [1898] 1 Ch. 315, 67 L.J Ch. 169 (Ch.D.). It would be different if the
later fixed chargee took with notice of restrictions imposed under the terms of the floating charge on
the grant of later charges: see R.M. Goode, ‘The Exodus of the Floating Charge” in D. Feldman & F
Meisel, eds., Corporate and Commercial Law: Modem Developments (London: Lloyds of London
Press, 1996) 197. Such restrictive clauses, sometimes called negative pledge, are not registrable par-
267 F Oditah, “Lightweight Floating Charges” [1991] J. Bus. L. 49.
(U.K.), 1986, c. 45.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
643
More importantly, an advantage of the fixed charge is that when the chargor is in re-
ceivership or liquidation, the chargee ranks ahead of preferred creditors, such as the
Inland Revenue and employees of the chargor. A creditor whose security consists of a
floating charge ranks after preferred creditors, even if that charge has crystallised be-
fore the appointment of the receiver or liquidator.’
Nevertheless, a creditor who relies solely on a fixed charge will surrender a pow-
erful advantage that goes with a floating charge. Secured debentures almost always
contain a clause granting the chargee the right to appoint a receiver on behalf of the
chargor company. This contractually-appointed receiver may owe certain basic duties
to the chargor but is entitled to act in the exclusive interest of the chargee in the event
of a conflict of interest between the chargor and the chargee.”‘ An administrator, on
the other hand, is appointed to act in the interests of all of a company’s creditors and
not just those who have security.”‘ The administrator is therefore given certain powers
to deal with assets which are the subject of a security and to enter into dealings in
conducting the affairs of the company serving to diminish the priority positions of
ticulars of a charge and so will not bind third parties deemed to have notice of registered company
charges: see Wilson v. Kelland, [1910] 2 Ch. 306,79 L.J. Ch. 580 (Ch.D.). It is a common practice for
such clauses to be insinuated into the particulars of charge where they will commonly be seen by any
third party who actually does inspect the register. However, this does not mean that a third party who
does not inspect, even one who knows of the practice, will have constructive notice of the clause.
27o Insolvency Act 1986, supra note 268, ss. 40, 175, 251: “floating charge”.
” Shamji v. Johnson Matthey, [1986] B.C.L.C. 278, [1986] 2 B.C.C. 98 (Ch.D.), aff’d (1986),
[1991] B.C.L.C. 36, [1986] 1 F.T.L.R. 329 (C.A.). In dealing with the chargee’s assets, the contractu-
ally-appointed receiver does not owe a duty of care in tort to the chargee. This has been criticised on
the ground that the chargee would be adequately protected by a rule that the receiver may prefer the
chargee’s interest in the event of a conflict with the chargor’s interest. To this effect, see R.M. Goode,
Commercial Law, 2d ed. (London: Penguin, 1995) at 691, n. 79. See also J.S. Ziegel, “The Privately
Appointed Receiver and the Enforcement of Security Interests: Anomaly or Superior Solution?” in
J.S. Ziegel, ed., Current Developments in International and Comparative Corporate Insolvency Law
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 459. Despite having managerial powers, this receiver exercises them
on behalf of the debenture holder and therefore does not owe the company the conventional duties of
a manager see Re B Johnson & Co (Builders), [1955] Ch. 634, [1955] 2 All E.R. 775 at 661-62
(C.A.). The receiver is nevertheless under an equitable duty to avoid acting fraudulently or recklessly
when dealing with the company’s property: see Kennedy v. de Trafford, [1897] A.C. 180, [1896] 1 Ch.
762 at 772 (C.A.); and Downsview Nominees v. First City Corporation, [1993] A.C. 295, [1993] 3 All
E.R. 626 (P.C.) [hereinafter Downsview]. This duty, besides being owed to the company, will be owed
to anyone else (such as a guarantor with subrogation rights) who has an interest in the equity of re-
demption: see Standard Chartered Bank v. Walker, [1982] 3 All E.R. 938, [1982] 1 WL.R. 1410
(C.A.) [hereinafter Standard Chartered Bank]. Although the language of Downsview puts the matter
in some doubt, the better view is that the receiver’s equitable duty extends to taking care when con-
ducting the sale (as opposed to deciding when to sell): see Standard Chartered Bank, ibid.; and
Cuckmere Brick Co. v. Mutual Finance, [1971] 1 Ch. 949, [1971] 2 All E.R. 633 (C.A.).
2
‘ This is vividly shown in cases where the administrator exercised statutory powers in order to in-
terfere with the rights of secured creditors. See BristolAirport, supra note 228; Re Atlantic Computer
Systems Plc. (1990), [1992] Ch. 505, [1992] 1 All E.R. 476 (C.A.) [hereinafater Re Atlantic Com-
puter]; and Re Sabre International Products Ltd., [1991] B.C.L.C. 470, [1991] B.C.C. 694 (Ch.D.).
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existing secured creditors.” Consequently, it will be very much in the interest of an
institutional lender to block the appointment of an administrator in order to send in its
own contractual receiver instead.
An administrator may not be appointed if there is an administrative receiver al-
ready in place.’ An administrative receiver is not just any receiver, but specifically
one “appointed by or on behalf of the holders of any debentures of the company se-
cured by a charge which, as created, was a floating charge, or by such a charge and
one or more other securities.”‘ Moreover, this receivership must extend to “the whole
(or substantially the whole) of a company’s property.'”” At first glance, the secured
creditor has two choices. The first is to bargain for high-ranking security, which
means taking the path of the fixed charge. The second is to obtain the right to appoint
an administrative receiver thereby blocking the appointment of an administrator,
which points to a floating charge and a lower-ranking security. On closer analysis,
however, the secured creditor can have the best of both worlds. Provided the secured
creditor has a combination of floating and fixed charges covering at least substantially
the whole of a company’s property,'” then the appointment of an administrator can be
blocked. Finally, the floating charge can be a purely artificial construct sweeping up
residual assets, or even only the unlikely prospect of there being residual assets, once
the fixed charge has swept up the lion’s share of the company’s assets. This was sanc-
tioned in one case.’. where the non-trading company, a special corporate vehicle, had,
for practical purposes, nothing left once its only substantial asset was taken up by the
fixed security.’ ” The lightweight floating charge thus created was very unlikely to em-
brace assets of any real value, and was wholly different in kind from the charge over
the company’s undertaking that was one of the distinctive creations of nineteenth
century English corporate law.
A thread running through this last case is the reluctance of English law to see is-
sues of public policy in the way that individual creditors maximise their advantages-
in bilateral deals with debtors-at the expense of other creditors. This same theme
emerges in Re New Bullas,2″ where it was common ground between the parties that
there was no issue of public policy at stake in the litigation. The debtor company gave
“3 Insolvency Act 1986, supra note 268, ss. 9(3), 10(l)(b)(iv), 10(1)(c)(iv), 11(3)(c)-(d), 15, 19(4),
19(5), 248,251.
2. Ibid., s. 9(3): unless the chargee procuring the administrative receiver’s appointment consents to
the appointment of an administrator, which is exceptionally unlikely.
275 Ibid. [emphasis added].
276 Ibid., s. 29(2).
.77 Note the words emphasized in the text accompanying note 275, above.
27 Re Croftbell Ltd., [1990] B.C.L.C. 844, [1990] B.C.C. 781 (Ch.D.).
279 There is also the technical possibility of the equity of redemption remaining after account is
taken of the fixed charge becoming subject to the floating charge. The very need to mention this gives
a flavour of the artificiality of English law whose only orientation appears to be the manufacture of a
system that maximises the interests of institutional secured lenders.
2o Supra note 240.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
645
a so-called “fixed charge” over its book debts to a financier under the terms of a de-
benture providing that, in the event of monies being paid “[d]uring the continuance of
this security”
they should “stand released from the fixed charge … and shall stand
subject to the [residual] floating charge [in the debenture] “” It was the contention of
the financier, or rather of the administrative receivers appointed at its behest, that the
book debts (as opposed to their proceeds) were not subject to the preferred claim of
the Inland Revenue. 3 since at all times they were caught by a charge that ‘vas fixed
from its inception. The administrative receivers argued that when they intervened, the
release from the fixed charge no longer took effect and they were at liberty to pay
over to the financier the proceeds of the debts as and when received. The disputed
debts were by now not those that had been collected in the past, but those that had not
yet been paid. The Court of Appeal, enforcing the freedom of contract principle,
agreed with the administrative receivers. In the result, the financier was freed from
having to assert control over the book debts and their proceeds during the normal
conduct of the debtor company’s business, which is the conventional requirement of a
fixed charge.’ Moreover, the court drew a distinction between book debts and their
proceeds, when recognizing the existence of separate charges over them, which has
been roundly criticised as untenable in practical terms and as flouting the legislative
will to put preference creditors ahead of certain types of chargee.’
In our view, Re New Bullas may not survive a determined challenge. If it were to
be overturned, it is most unlikely that the decision to do so would attract anything like
the opprobrium that was visited upon Millett J. when, in Re Charge Card Services
Ltd., he gave his opinion that a bank could not take a charge (or so-called “charge-
back”) over its own indebtedness to a depositor who was indebted to the bank under
the terms of a separate advance. It is a common practice for banks to insist on com-
pensating balances being maintained with them as security for advances. Banks could
in most cases protect themselves by claiming generous insolvency set-off rights’ and
by conditioning their duty to repay the deposit so that it did not spring until their ad-
vance to the depositor had been repaid.’ However, it was certainly true that, if Millett
J. was correct, the bank could not take a charge over the deposit when other creditors
could and when there were advantages accruing to it from a charge-back that other
28 bil. at 488.
..2 Ibid. at 489.
.. See Insolvency Act 1986, supra note 268, ss. 40,386 and Schedule 6.
See Re Brightlife (1986), [1987] 1 Ch. 200, [1986] 3 All E.R. 673 (Ch.D.); Re Keenan Bros. Ltd.,
[1986] B.C.L.C. 242, [1986] 2 B.C.C. 98 (S.C. Ireland); and Re Pearl Maintenance Services Ltd.,
[1995] 1 B.C.L.C. 449, [1995] B.C.C. 657 (Ch.D.). See also Re Atlantic Computer, supra note 272;
Re Atlantic Medical Ltd, [1993] B.C.L.C. 386, [1992] B.C.C. 653 (Ch.D.).
28 R.M. Goode, “Charges over Book Debts: A Missed Opportunity” (1994) 110 L.Q. Rev. 592. See
also M.G. Bridge, “Fixed Charges and Freedom of Contract” (1994) 110 L.Q. Rev. 340. In support of
the decision, see A. Berg, “Charges over Book Debts: A Reply” [1995] J. Bus. L. 433.
2″ (1986), [1987] Ch. 150, [1986] 3 All E.R. 289 (Ch.D.).
7 Insolvency Rules, S.I. 1986/4.90.
The so-called “flawed asset” approach.
‘
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expedients could not provide.’ The technical reason advanced against the charge-
back was that enforcement entailed the bank having to sue itself and so would take ef-
fect as a release of the debt in full or in part, which was an evident absurdity. Never-
theless, as cogent as this reasoning might be for a mortgage, it could not be put for-
ward so readily in the case of a charge, since a charge (unlike a mortgage) does not
involve conveyance of the encumbered property to a chargee. Moreover, a charge can
be enforced by a bank by simply effecting a book entry, which is a long way from the
world of Lewis Carroll and a bank suing itself.
Millett J.’s opinion was criticised on a number of occasions, both judicial’ and
otherwise.’ It was nevertheless upheld by the Court of Appeal in Re Bank of Credit”
before the House of Lords in the same case’ came down with a ringing endorsement
of charge-backs. The reasoning of Lord Hoffmann is more confident than scientifice
and, as receptive as he is to commercial needs, it is perhaps a pity that he did not re-
cite the practical reasons behind the recognition of charge-backs. He does, neverthe-
less, appear to have settled the law on the subject and to have reinstated the reputation
of English law as being accommodating to commerce. In this area of law, freedom of
contract is to be equated with commercial need.
D. Registration
In matters of security, English law does not have a notice-filing system of the type
contained in modem security legislation like the Canadian PPSAs,” though the intro-
duction of such a system is under review by the Department of Trade and Industry.’
‘” See R. Calnan, “Security over Deposits after Re BCCI (No. 8)” (1996) 11 J.I.B.FL. 111 [herein-
after “Security over Deposits”].
‘ Welsh Development Agency v. Export Finance Co., [1992] B.C.L.C. 148, [1992] B.C.C. 270 at
284-285 (CA.), Dillon L.J.
” “Security over Deposits”, supra note 289 (relying upon Re Hart, ex parte Caldicott (1884), 25
Ch.D. 716, 53 L.J. Ch. 618 (C.A.)); and Great Britain, Report of Review Committee on Banking
Services: Law and Practice (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989). The Bank of England’s
Legal Risk Committee in its final report of October 1992 recommended legislation to permit charge-
backs.
” Supra note 227.
.. Re Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A. (No. 8) (1997), [1998] A.C. 214, [1997] 4
All E.R. 568 (H.L.), criticized by R.M. Goode, “Charge-backs and Legal Fictions” (1998) 114 L.Q.
Rev. 178, and approved by R. Calnan, “Fashioning the Law to Suit the Practicalities of Life” (1998)
114 L.Q. Rev. 174.
‘ The learned judge was unconvincingly dismissive of dicta in the House of Lords in Halesowen
Presswork and Assemblies v. National Westminster Bank, [1972] A.C. 785, [1972] 1 All E.R. 641
(H.L.) and was unimpressed by a legal principle-that charge-backs could not be taken–that could
so easily, as a number of Commonwealth jurisdictions had demonstrated, be reversed by legislation.
” On the notice filing systems under the PPSAs, see Ziegel & Cuming, supra note 115 at c. 4.
296 The Department issued a Consultation Paper in November 1994: Company Law Reform: Pro-
posals for Reform of Part XII of the Companies Act 1985 [hereinafter “D.T.I. Consultation Paper”].
Part 4 of the Companies Act 1989 (U.K.), 1989, c. 40, which was to replace Part 12 of the Companies
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
Rather, the chargor or chargee sends to the Registrar of Companies both the instru-
ment of charge and what are called the “prescribed particulars of charge'” 7 The latter
of these are entered on the register after the Registrar’s staff have checked the par-
ticulars against the instrument to verify the accuracy of the particulars. Reservation of
title clauses are not registered. Conditional sale and hire-purchase agreements have
never been subject to registration in England. Furthermore, only those charges that are
on the statutory list have to be registered.” The list has been expanded over the years but
still falls short of a comprehensive coverage of charges over all types of property.’
The restrictions in English law on the taking of security for future advances, to-
gether with the system of sending in the instrument and the prescribed particulars of
charge, produce a system that creates quite a high entry cost for those creditors seek-
ing to compete with the major institutional lenders. There are also other advantages in
the present system for institutional lenders. For example, in respect of a failure to
register within the required twenty-one days running from the creation of the charge,’
the leave of the Registrar, which is discretionary,”‘ will be backdated. Though subject
to the rights of intervening secured creditors,
the leave will not be subject to the in-
terests of those who become unsecured creditors during the period of non-
registration? ‘ Unsecured creditors have no standing to challenge the security between
creditor and lender. Their protection reposes in the general refusal to permit late reg-
istration where liquidation is imminent.’ Once late registration is allowed, it is con-
clusive and may not be challenged by a subsequently-appointed liquidator ‘ unless the
permission for late registration was subject to the condition that it not occur within a
stated period.’
Finally, another feature of the present system that is attractive to institutional
lenders is that once issued, the Registrar’s certificate is conclusive evidence that the
requirements of registration have been met.”
It is important to understand that the
Act 1985 (U.K.), 1985, c. 6, contains some of the features of a notice-filing system. It is a matter of
some embarrassment that its provisions have not yet been, nor ever will be, brought into force. An al-
ternative statutory replacement for Part 12 of the 1985 Act is shortly expected.
2″ Companies Act 1985, ibid, ss. 399(1), 401(1); and Companies Forms Regulations, S.I. 1985/854
(Form No. 395).
Companies Act 1985, ibid., s. 396(1).
companies and over insurance policies.
2″ It does not include, for example, fixed charges over the chargor’s own shareholdings in other
” Companies Act 1985, supra note 296, s. 395(1).
“‘I bid., s. 404.
‘ Watson v. Duff, Morgan & Vermont (Holdings) (1973), [1974] 1 All E.R. 794, [1974] 1 W.L.R.
450 (Ch.D.).
“‘Re Ehrmann Brothers Ltd., [1906] 2 Ch. 697,75 L.J. Ch. 817 (C.A.).
‘ Re Ashpurton Estates (1982), [1983] Ch. 110, [1982] 3 W.L.R. 964 (C.A.).
“‘Exeter Trust Ltd. v. Screenways Ltd, [1991] B.C.L.C. 888, [1991] B.C.C. 477 (C.A.).
‘ The so-called “Charles Order”, taking its name from Re LH. Charles & Co Ltd. (1934), [1935]
W.N. 15, 10 Digest (Reissue) 870 (Ch.D.).
Companies Act 1985, supra note 296, s. 401(2)(b).
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certificate protects the chargee, not to the extent of the contents of the prescribed par-
ticulars of charge, but to the extent of what is contained in the instrument of charge it-
self. Yet, it is only the prescribed particulars that are entered on the register and are
the particulars
open to inspection by members of the public. In one notorious case,’
of charge submitted by the chargee failed to state that the charge over certain premises
extended also to chattels on the premises. Despite the carelessness of the chargee, the
Registrar’s conclusive certificate served to protect the chargee against competing
claims to the chattels. More than anything else, it is opposition to the abolition of the
conclusive character of the Registrar’s certificate that has prevented Part 4 of the
Companies Act 1989″ from being brought into force. ‘
E. Conclusion on English Law
The above statement of the English law of security is necessarily a selective one.
It does, however, point to aspects of the present law that have developed over a period
of many years to produce a system that operates strongly in favour of institutional
lenders. This is similar to the Article 9 and PPSA position.”‘ English law has never
imposed restrictions on the taking of security over future assets, one of the major im-
pulses behind the reform movement that produced Article 9. It has allowed the crea-
tion of the private receiver acting nominally in the name of, and as agent for, the
debtor company, yet has promoted the exclusive interests of the creditor who procured
the appointment. This receiver, moreover, is treated in some ways as an office-holder
with some of the powers of a liquidator.”2 English law has confined the PMSI of a fi-
nancing seller to the original goods supplied. Even if a reform of the present law were
to bring in certain advantages to these lenders, there is a danger that these hard-won
advantages would be lost. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there should be a dis-
tinct lack of enthusiasm for a reform of the present system of security in England. In-
stitutional lenders appear to have more influence in the councils of government than
do trade creditors.
.. National Provincial and Union Bank of England v. Charnley (1923), [1924] 1 K.B. 431, 93
L.J.K.B. 241 (C.A.).
3 Supra note 296.
310 Certain company charges also have to be registered as land charges, in which case the conclusive
character of the certificate issued by the Registrar of Companies is regarded as vital. See “D.T.I. Con-
sultation Paper”, supra note 296.
‘See the references at supra note 10.
1 Insolvency Act 1986, supra note 268, ss. 230-37 on enforced cooperation of directors and offi-
cers, inquiries into the company’s dealings, power to apply to the court for assistance, etc. See also Re
Aveling Barford Ltd. (1988), [1988] 3 All E.R. 1019, [1989] 1 W.L.R. 360 (Ch.D.).
1999]
M.G. BRIDGE, ETAL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
649
IV. Exporting Article 9 and PPSA Models to Other Jurisdictions:
The Case of Quebec
A. Introduction: The Background to Reform of Quebec’s Law of
Secured Transactions
As our analysis thus far is meant to have made plain, Article 9 and PPSA think-
ing-in whatever is its recognizable local form-is a creature of legislation and his-
tory, and represents a set of policy choices that cannot be seen as other than socially
contingent. Hence, it is possible for a sophisticated legal system like that of the United
Kingdom to arrive at a system of secured transaction law that has no need for the
functionalism of the Article 9 and PPSA regimes.
In this Part, it is argued that it is also possible for legal systems with economies
similar to those of common law Canada which are committed to function over form to
take quite a different position on the utility of the Article 9 and PPSA regime. Beyond
this rather conventionalist description of the issues of commercial law reform, it is
possible for a jurisdiction to resist Article 9 and PPSA analysis because of the prob-
lems with functionalism identified in the Introduction, and with the ways in which the
law has had to contend with such problems as have been described throughout this
analysis.
Consider the case of the civil law jurisdiction of Quebec. Between 1955 and
1993, reform of the private law, including the law of security on property, preoccupied
Quebec jurists.”‘ In 1978, the Civil Code Revision Office charged with managing this
reform process released a Draft Civil Code” proposing, inter alia, the adoption of
something akin to Article 9 for the law of secured transactions.”‘ The regime envi-
sioned by the Draft Civil Code featured the establishment of a single, solely consen-
sual security device called the hypothec which could be taken over immovable and
movable property, and over corporeal as well as incorporeal property. The hypothec
would also be capable of charging single assets as well as universalities of property.
The proposal of the Civil Code Revision Office also contained a “substance of the
transaction” rule in the form of a “presumption of hypothec” ‘2″ Much of the regime
proposed by the Revision Office was, following at least two further legislative itera-
tions in the form of Draft Bills, ultimately adopted in the Civil Code of Quebec
“‘ See e.g. J.E.C. Brierley & R.A. Macdonald, eds., Quebec Civil Lawv (Toronto: Emond Montgom-
ery, 1993) at 88-93 for a history of the Civil Code revision process.
“‘ Civil Code Revision Office, Report on the Qudbec Civil Code (Quebec City: Pditeur officiel,
1978) [hereinafter Draft Civil Code].
… For a brief review and counterpoint to the position that Article 9 should serve as the model for the
modernization exercise, see R.A. Macdonald, “The Counter-Reformation of Secured Transactions
Law in Quebec” (1991) 19 Can. Bus. L.J. 239.
36 Draft Civil Code, supra note 314, vol. 2 at 431-35.
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(“C.C.Q”) which was proclaimed into force on January 1, 1994.2′” The “presumption
of hypothec” was, however, not carried forward into the C.C.Q.”‘
For an Article 9 enthusiast, this outcome is paradoxical. How could it have been
that the National Assembly of Quebec was able to buy into almost all of the modem-
izing and rationalizing proposals of Article 9 (carrying some of these even farther
than Article 9 itself) but was not able to imagine a legal technique which would sweep
standard title-based transactions into the security regime whenever they were being
deployed as security? In other words, the C.C.Q. has suppressed almost all non-
consensual security devices, has reformulated a panoply of disparate possession-
based, “fictitious title”-based, and extra-codal sui generis security devices, and has
also created a generic security concept applicable not only to single assets, universali-
ties, corporeal and incorporeal property, but also to immovable property as well as
movable property. This appears to have all the characteristics of a comprehensive ef-
fort at rationalization.
Yet the C.C.Q. does not announce a “substance of the transaction” principle in
any of its possible variations. Indeed, to the surprise of many commentators, the new
Code represented a regression in this respect from the regime already in place under
the Civil Code of Lower Canada (“C.C.L.C”), at least in so far as immovable security
was concerned. Under articles 1040a to 1040e of the C.C.L.C., various title security
devices-e.g. sales under suspensive or resolutory conditions, promises of sale, sales
with a right of redemption, giving in payment clauses, etc.-were made subject to a
mandatory procedural regime at the moment of their enforcement. What is more,
when practitioners sought to escape the limitations of articles 1040a to 1040e by
imagining novel title-security devices, the courts did not hesitate to extend the princi-
ples of these articles to all these novelties.”9
The answer to this paradox lies less in an imagined atavistic commitment to form
and rejection of functionalism than it does in the way that the civil law negotiates the
relationship between form and function. To understand the manner of this negotiation
one must first understand basic civil law approaches to obligations, property, and se-
curity devices and the epistemology of a true codification. One must also consider the
fact that the civil law has long had a highly developed notion of security, and has not,
like the common law, had to drag itself out of the swamp of title-transactions cor-
rupted as security, with the mortgage, of course, being the paradigmatic example.
317R.A. Macdonald, “Change of Terminology? Change of Law?” (1992) 23 R.G.D. 357.
.8 For a detailed discussion of the policy debates surrounding the decision not to incorporate a
“substance of the transaction” rule into the C.C.Q., see e.g. R.A. Macdonald, “Faut-il s’assurer qu’on
appelle un chat un chat? Observations sur la m6thodologie l6gislative A travers ‘6num6ration limita-
tive des s~ret6s, ‘la pr6somption d’hypothque’ et le principe de ‘l’essence de l’op6ration’
in E.
Caparros, ed., Mdlanges Germain Bri~re (Montreal: Wilson & Lafleur, 1993) 527.
“‘ See especially Nadeau v. Nadeau, [1977] C.A. 248, online: QL (AQ), where a nine-member
panel of the Quebec Court of Appeal (which usually sits in panels of three) decided that an unregis-
tered promise of sale transaction was captured by the procedural regime of arts. 1040a-1040e
C.C.L.C.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
B. Civil Law Conceptions of Property, Contract, and Security
Much more than the common law, the civil law distinguishes between owing and
owning. It has a relatively clean conception of ownership as a direct right in a thing
that may be asserted independently of a right to possession or even of material deten-
tion itself. It does not nuance the concept with a theory of equitable interests designed
to palliate deficiencies in the logic of property rights, and it sharply distinguishes be-
tween real rights in things (ius in re) and personal rights relating to property (ius ad
rem trans personam) or obligations (ius ad personam). In the traditional framework of
the civil law, what are characterized as “real” rights (droits riels)-whether ownership
itself, or fractional dismemberments of ownership (personal servitudes), charges on
land (real servitudes), or collateral rights intended to secure an obligation (real secu-
rity)-may be claimed only in things.’
Real rights themselves may be enforced by particular remedies known as real ac-
tions which, like the action in revendication, have for their object the recovery of title
or possession from the defendant. Personal rights, by contrast, may be enforced only
by means of a personal action directed against the debtor of the obligation in question.
Their enforcement presupposes, after judgment, the seizure and sale of the defen-
dant’s assets. The consequence of this central distinction is that the civil law has a
relatively clean conception of the asset base upon which creditors of personal rights
may seek payment of their claims, namely, the debtor’s patrimony 2′ A person’s pat-
rimony is, in principle, comprised of all assets and liabilities that can be translated into
a pecuniary value. It is that patrimony, viewed in terms of its present assets at the time
of seizure and sale, that is made liable for the fulfilment of a debtor’s obligations.”
The patrimony is known as the “common pledge” of creditors. Absent some other
principle of law, creditors who seek payment of their claims against a debtor’s patri-
mony will share pro rata in the realization value of that patrimony should there be a
shortfall.3
Unsurprisingly, therefore, security on property in the civil law has traditionally
been understood as a mechanism by which a creditor may escape the pari passu rule
of distribution of the proceeds of a sale in execution,”‘ i.e., security is a right in the
property (or some fraction of the property) of a debtor. It is a ius in re. While a claim,
or the right of a debtor to receive payment of a personal right from another person, is
a species of property and forms part of the common pledge upon which creditors may
realize a judgment, it is not property that can be owned. For this reason, historically,
320 This classical conception of real rights is, however, somewhat nuanced in the C.C.Q.: see D.-C.
Lamontagne, Biens et Proprigtj (Cowansville, Qc.: Yvon Blais, 1995), and compare R.A. Mac-
donald, “Reconceiving the Symbols of Property: Interests, Universalities and Other Heresies” (1994)
39 McGill L.J. 761.
32’ Art 2644 C.C.Q.
32 2 Art. 2646(i) C.C.Q.
311 Art. 2646(ii) C.C.Q.
324 Arts. 2646(ii), 2647 C.C.Q.
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claims could not really be given in security in the classical sense. Finally, as its name
suggests, security was conceived as an accessory to a principal obligation. Any right
in property, such as title, could not be a security device because it was not an acces-
sory but the manifestation of the obligation itself.
The essentials of security on property in the civil law may be deduced from these
principles. At the point of enforcement, security is a creditor’s conditional right: (i) to
extract the value of secured assets either actually falling within the debtor’s patrimony
or, if no longer in the debtor’s patrimony, having been charged by the debtor when
previously in that patrimony; (ii) to extract the value of secured assets at a judicial sale
or in some other legally-authorized process of realization; and (iii) to obtain payment
of the secured obligation by preference from the proceeds thereby generated. Histori-
cally, as a general rule, the concept of security neither comprised nor commanded a
right to take possession of the charged property (a right to its use-value), the pledge
being the sole exception because, at its creation, the creditor would be vested with
possession of the pledged property. Historically, moreover, the concept of security
neither comprised nor commanded a right of foreclosure as an enforcement remedy (a
right to its capital-value).'” In brief, at the point of enforcement, security was neither
use nor capital, but only the right to extract (by means of a liquidation) the capital
value of the asset up to an amount sufficient to pay off the secured obligation.
Of course, like a common law lawyer, a civil law lawyer could allow that a right
ultimately maturing into a preferential payment upon a debtor’s bankruptcy might
arise through other means, or might have a different form. At the time of recodifica-
tion, these quasi-security rights were numerous.”2 Some, like the pure execution
privilege which is characterized in the C.C.Q. not as “privileges” but as “prior
claims”, had no consensual foundation. Nor, given that they were not real rights, did
they give rise to a right to follow the charged asset upon its disposition by the debtor.
Nor, finally, did they depend (like common law possessory liens) on the creditor actu-
ally taking or retaining possession of the assets in question. Furthermore, other quasi-
securities, like an unpaid seller’s and a repairer’s lien, neither had a consensual foun-
dation, nor gave rise to a right to follow but, being grounded in possession (and in the
case of the unpaid seller’s lien, fictitious possession for thirty days following deliv-
ery), they did protect the creditor’s right to possession against all other creditors.
More radically, creditors were able to assert preferential rights over certain of a
debtor’s incorporeal assets. Where this incorporeal property was a dismemberment of
the right of ownership, of course, no particular intellectual difficulty was created since
“‘ For a discussion of the notion of security in the civil law tradition, see R.J Goebel, “Recon-
structing the Roman Law of Real Security” (1961-62) 36 Tul. L. Rev. 29; P. Ciotola, “La rdforme des
stlrets sous le Code civil du Quebec” in Barreau du Quebec & Chambre des notaires du Quebec, La
rdfone du Code civil (Quebec City: Presses de l’Universit6 Laval, 1993) vol. 3, 303; L. Payette, Les
sfiretis dans le Code civil du Qudbec (Cowansville, Qc.: Yvon Blais, 1994); and D. Pratte, Prioritis et
Hypothkques (Sherbrooke, Qc.: Revue de droit de l’Universit6 de Sherbrooke, 1995).
.2 See “A Quebec Perspective”, supra note 9.
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M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
653
such rights (emphyteusis, usufruct, use, habitation) were by definition real rights giv-
ing an immediate access to the corporeal object in which they could be claimed.
Similarly, if a claim were corporealized in an instrument that itself was the value-
e.g. a negotiable instrument-rather
than mere evidence of the value-e.g. a
certificate of deposit-they were deemed to be corporealized and, as such, capable of
being owned and pledged as security. Ordinary claims like certificates of deposit and
book debts that, having no corporeal embodiment, were not capable of being owned,
could not be given in security. Nonetheless, as an object of property, a claim could be
transferred or assigned. When transferred conditionally, the claim could be deployed
like a security device, but it is important to note that the technique being deployed was
not a classical security technique; it was, rather, a transfer of title.
This observation, of course, leads to a discussion of the most common form of
quasi-security historically known to the civil law: the title transaction. The pari passu
rule for bankruptcy distributions could be avoided by a creditor manipulating title to
property so that at or upon default, the asset in question is not part of the debtor’s pat-
rimony. In other words, a bankruptcy preference could be generated either by means
of a disruption to the principle of the equality of creditors-i.e., a true security or an
execution preference-or it could be generated by means of a disruption to the princi-
ple that a debtor’s property is the common pledge of creditors-i.e., by using title to
remove assets from the debtor’s patrimony. While both the panoply of transactions
that are quasi-securities or incomplete security rights and title-security raise the ques-
tion of what is the proper limit of a regulatory regime designed to manage a system of
secured transactions, the focus here will be on the manipulation of title as a means for
exploring the logic of the new codal regime.3″‘
Before examining these title-type transactions, however, it is helpful, following
the traditional classificatory approach of the civil law, to situate them in a broader
context. Four basic forms of right in property capable of securing the performance of
an obligation, which are distinguishable depending on the locus of title and posses-
sion, are imaginable. First, there are those where the creditor takes both title to and
possession of the secured asset. This was the Romanistfiducia cum creditore and is
today the model of the civil law sale with a right of redemption and general assign-
ment of book debts. Second, there are those where the creditor retains, takes, or re-
serves the right to take title, but puts or leaves the debtor in possession until default.
This is the classical civil law instalment sale, the resolutory condition in sale, the
seller’s right of revendication, the foreclosure agreement (pacte commissoire), and the
finance lease. Third, there are those where the creditor leaves the debtor as owner, but
retains or takes possession of the secured assets. This is the Romanist pignus, or today
327 It should be emphasized, however, that the overall logic of the regime of the C.C.Q. is best re-
vealed when all these various devices are explored together, as elements of the larger framework re-
lating to the compulsory performance of obligations. For a general review, see e.g. R.A. Macdonald,
Teaching/Learning Materials on the Law of Security on Property, 3d ed. (Montreal: McGill Univer-
sity, Faculty of Law, 1995), especially Chapters 5-11 [hereinafter Law of Security].
654
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROITDE MCGILL
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the civil law pledge or pawn, the unpaid seller’s lien, and the right of retention.
Fourth, there are those where the creditor takes neither title not possession, but merely
a right to seize and sell the secured asset, either by judicial process or privately. This is
the Romanist hypotheca, or today the civil law hypothec, and the execution privilege
or prior claim.
As noted, of these four forms only the last two-pignus and hypotheca-have
typically been considered as security devices, because only in these cases is the
creditor truly a creditor, rather than an owner or contingent owner. Up to and through-
out the recodification period, the regime of security on property in Quebec remained
largely faithful to its historical roots and intellectual premises. The two paradigmatic
consensual security devices were the hypothec over immovables and the disposses-
sory pledge of movables. Nonetheless, especially during the decades since the end of
World War II, the legislative regime began to diversify beyond traditional codal de-
vices. By special statute, a general charge over corporate assets was instituted, as were
the
the non-possessory pledge of commercial and agricultural equipment,
pledge/assignment of accounts receivable, the finance lease, and the mortgage-like
transfer of property in stock patterned on the then section 178 (now section 427) of
the Bank Act? In addition, over this same time the courts also came to recognize the
validity of some title-based transactions, even when it was apparent that they were
being deployed as security.'” To understand the courts’ thinking about why certain
in connection with movable property where they were
transactions-especially
clearly designed to overcome the prohibition on non-dispossessory security-should
be permitted, it is necessary to review how the civil law conceptualizes these various
title transactions.
C. Civil Law Conceptions of Title Security Devices and Their
Regulation
Civilian legal thinking contemplates four main archetypes of title-based transac-
tions that can be deployed primarily or secondarily to secure the performance of an
obligation. Two appear to be genuine vendor transactions. The first is where the
creditor of the secured obligation initially owns the property and simply retains title,
whether or not there is any present or future obligation to convey title to the debtor of
the obligation. Examples are an instalment sale, a promise of sale, and an ordinary
lease or finance lease either with or without option to purchase. The second main ar-
chetype is where the creditor initially owns the property, transfers title to the debtor,
but reserves the right to reacquire title upon default. Examples are the legal right of
resolution for breach of a buyer’s obligations to pay the sale price and to take delivery,
‘. See R.A. Macdonald, “Inventory Financing in Quebec After Bill 97” (1984) 9 Can. Bus. L.J.
153.
‘ R.A. Macdonald, “Privileges and Other Preferences Upon Movable Property in Quebec: Their
Inpact Upon the Rights and Recourses of Execution Creditors” in M. Springman & E. Gertner, eds.,
Debtor-Creditor Law” Practice and Doctrine (Toronto: Butterworths, 1985) c. 7.
1999]
M.G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
655
and the sale under contractual resolutory condition. In both of these situations, the lo-
cus of title or possession at the instant of default is only a secondary consideration. In
both, the root transaction is essentially a sale; an asset is added to the debtor’s patri-
mony. In economic terms, the bargain is for a capital asset (the contingent acquisition
of property by the purchaser) as against a revenue obligation (the payment of its price
over time to the seller).
The other two main archetypes of title security are lender transactions. One oc-
curs where the debtor initially owns the property and the creditor takes title when the
security right is set up, promising to reconvey title when the secured obligation is per-
formed. This, of course, is the classical common law mortgage transaction. A second
example is a sale by the debtor with a right of redemption. This is a legal technique
that originally arose as a method for money lenders to escape the medieval religious
prohibition on loans with interest. The initial sale price was the capital of the loan, and
the repurchase price was the time-value of the money during the currency of the loan.
Further examples are a double sale by the debtor to the creditor and by the creditor
back to the debtor, and a sale-leaseback which is a sale by the debtor to the creditor
and a lease back to the debtor with an option to repurchase the asset. The other ar-
chetype is where the debtor initially owns the property and is forced to surrender
ownership only upon default. Examples are the giving-in-payment clause, the pacte
commissoire, and the sale by a debtor to the creditor under a suspensive condition (the
condition being the debtor’s default). In both of these situations, the locus of title or
possession at the instant of default is only a secondary consideration. In both, the root
transaction is a loan, the addition of cash, rather than a new corporeal asset to a
debtor’s patrimony. The logic of the transaction is one in which the debtor of an obli-
gation offers title to an asset as a hostage to secure its performance. The bargain is for
a revenue asset (the receipt of money) as against a capital obligation (the contingent
surrender of property).
As noted, not all of these forms of transaction were accepted by courts, especially
when they related to movables.’ There was some certainty in the immediate post-
codification period in 1866 about whether the common law rule of consensualism in
sale had been adopted in Quebec, and consequently about whether delivery and title
could be dissociated in contracts of sale. However, by the end of the last century
courts were prepared to accept that sellers could deploy all manner of title-reservation
or title-recovery techniques to enhance their chances of receiving full payment of their
claim where a non-cash sale was in question. If vendor title-security was understood
and accepted by courts, acceptance of lender title-security had a longer gestation. By
the early twentieth century, it was typically enforced only in one of three situations.
First, the title device had to be auxiliary to a recognized security device such as the
giving-in-payment clause in deeds of hypothecs or the pacte commissoire in pledge.
Both of these were essentially foreclosure remedies attached to a recognized security.
Second, the title device had to be a long-recognized and codally authorized security-
3 0 R.A. Macdonald, “Exploiting the Pledge as a Security Device” (1985) 15 R.D.U.S. 551.
656
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type transaction. The only device of this nature was the mortgage-like sale with a right
of redemption that had been codified both in France and Quebec and, as noted, had an
ancient pedigree in the civil law. Third, as analogous to the rights of a seller, the title
device had to be deployed as a means of purchase money finance by a lender (the in-
terposed sale and, especially, the assignment of receiveables in conjunction with the
transfer of the vendor’s contingent title rights).
One can conclude that by the turn of the century, courts in Quebec had already
come to understand the subtle interplay of formalism and functionalism in the char-
acterization of security devices. This understanding was further developed during the
post-War expansion of the consumer economy, when lenders sought alternative ways
to finance the acquisition of consumer durables. Two devices in particular-the dou-
ble sale and sale-leaseback-found favour with financers. In both, a consumer pur-
chaser would purport to sell the object purchased to a finance company remitting the
sale price to the merchant. The finance company would then either resell the object to
the consumer under an instalment sale or sale with a resolutory condition, or would
lease it back to the consumer with an option to purchase. The monthly payments on
the instalment sale, or the monthly lease payments, would be equal to the instalments
due on the money initially advanced to the consumer as the price of the original sale
to the financer. However, when finance companies sought to use the devices as a tech-
nique to overcome the prohibition on the hypothecation of movables”-i.e., as a dis-
guised chattel mortgage transaction security for an ordinary loan of money-courts
were not hesitant to strike down the transactions.”2
By this time, the legislature had learned the lesson as well. In 1938, it began to
regulate foreclosure-type security devices, notably the sale with a right of redemption.
In the mid-1960s, it subjected all foreclosure recourses relating to immovables to a
mandatory enforcement procedure that gave the debtor a sixty-day period to remedy
any defaults. Within the decade, it had also required the registration of inventory title-
security, instalment sales, assignments of book debts, and non-possessory pledges,
and strictly regulated the enforcement of title-security (including long-term leases) in
consumer transactions.
D. Policy Perspectives on the Regulation of Title Security in the
Civil Law
Given this history, it is hardly plausible to claim that when, after much debate, the
National Assembly demurred to the “presumption of hypothec” proposal, it did so
unknowingly. Policy debate on the question of whether some general control over title
3, Art. 2022 C.C.L.C.
… See the discussion in M. Tancelin, “Simulation et cr~dit mobilier sans d~possession au Qu6bec”
(1974) R.I.D.C. 317; and E.E. Saunders, “Pledge, Commercial Pledge, Sale with a Right of Redemp-
tion and Similar Security Devices” in Meredith Memorial Lectures: Security in Moveable Property
(Montreal: Wilson & Lafleur, 1967) 16.
“3 See e.g. Brierley & Macdonald, supra note 313 at 642-86.
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
security should be imposed was both sustained and informed between 1978 and 1993.
Several different approaches to regulating title-type and other quasi-security transac-
tions, and their rationales, were considered.” These approaches were of two broad
types. Either they were of a type that purported to be comprehensive and uniform, or
they were of a type that sought to particularize solutions for different kinds of
transactions.
A first means for controlling title security would be its outright prohibition. No
right in property securing performance of an obligation other than a hypothec could
be taken. A second approach would be the enactment of a general deeming provision
that would not prohibit title transactions, but would simply recharacterize them as hy-
pothecs. An example is the “presumption of hypothec” suggested by the Civil Code
Revision Office. Instalment sales and financial leases, for example, would automati-
cally become ordinary sales with a hypothec back in favour of the seller, regardless of
the intention of the parties to them. Third, the legislature could adopt a “substance of
the transaction” principle. The transaction would remain as the parties intended, but
the registration and enforcement regime would be the same as that applicable to ordi-
nary hypothecs. In fact, this was the approach taken by the legislature in 1964. Fourth,
the legislature could simply leave all forms of title transaction unregulated as security
devices. Each of these four approaches purportedly regulate all transactions on the ba-
sis of their intent, their object, or their consequence.
A fifth approach would be the adoption of a variant of the policy ostensibly found
in France that prohibits certain title transactions. Unless deployed by a bonafide ven-
dor or lessor, a title mechanism could not be set up against third parties. Sixth, title
transactions might simply be regulated selectively. Certain vendor-initiated transac-
tions-e.g. instalment sales-and certain lender-initiated transactions-e.g. sales with
a right of redemption-would be made subject to the registration and enforcement re-
gime applicable to ordinary hypothecs, but others would not. Finally, the legislature
might regulate certain title transactions selectively, but even then do so only partially.
Modest registration requirements and enforcement procedures falling short of those
applicable to the hypothecary regime would be imposed on specified transactions.
The three latter approaches all require a more finely grained approach to determining
the nature and purposes of the transaction in question than any of the outright prohi-
bition, or presumption of hypothec, or even substance of the transaction approaches.
When the legislative policy options are presented in this manner, the central dis-
tinction between both the first four strategies-including the presumption of hypothec
and the substance of the transaction approaches-on the one hand, and the remaining
three strategies-those in fact adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec-on the
other, becomes obvious. It is not, as is often supposed by “progressive Article 9
proselytizers,” related to a choice between formalism and functionalism; it is between
unity and diversity, and a choice about dominating taxonomies. In short, the question
“‘ See generally Law of Security, supra note 327.
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROIT DE McGILL
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is whether non-security concepts are seen as parasitic upon the concept of security, or
whether the concept of security is parasitic upon the other basic concepts of private
law, notably those relating to property and obligation.
Article 9, in the form of the functionalist analysis herein described, and the pro-
posal of the Civil Code Revision Office both rest on universalizing solutions. Criteria
“a, b, and c’ which remain inexplicit in the U.C.C., are taken as evidence that the
substance of the transaction is the generation of a security right “S”, from which con-
clusion consequences “x, y, and z” follow.'” That is, Article 9, unless functionalism is
in some manner reined in, presumes that if security is one among the multiple objects
of a transaction, that characterization necessarily trumps all others, at least in so far as
registration and enforcement of non-possessory rights are concerned. However, the
substance of the transaction rule is not complete in itself as a means of regulating se-
curity. It is capable of leading to over-inclusion in relation to some transactions of the
sorts discussed above in Part I. It can also lead to obfuscation of the underlying issues
in the rationalization of the regulation, as indicated above in Part II.
E. Quebec’s New Civil Code on Secured Transactions
These concerns about under- and over-inclusiveness were clearly present in the
mind of the National Assembly in 1993. Moreover, the commitment to comprehen-
sive conceptual codification which is characteristic of civil law legal epistemology of-
fered a prudent rationale against inverting the conceptual priority of property and ob-
ligation on the one hand, and security on property on the other. Together, these factors
led to the legislature adopting in the C.C.Q. a regulatory regime that actually rests on
drawing the distinctions that functionalist analysis tends to elide.’ The regime begins
from the premise that ostensible ownership, especially of movable property, is a gen-
eral problem with the law of debtor-creditor relations, and not just in connection with
secured transactions. It then attempts to identify solutions to the problem of ostensible
ownership in the variety of possible situations: sale, lease, mandate, substitution, loan,
trust, dismemberment of ownership (or personal servitude), hypothec, etc. The func-
tional characterization of the object and intent of the transaction permits identification
of the relative importance of the parties’ differing objectives and leads to a variegated
regulatory scheme depending thereon. The relative density of the property and secu-
rity elements of different transactions and some of their regulatory entailments can be
illustrated as follows.
In some title transactions, call them a “Sfiret6-propri6t6”, the security element
dominates and excludes any other conception of the transaction. These transactions
directly expropriate a debtor’s equity. The giving-in-payment clause and the pacte
“. See A. Ross, “TO-TO” (1957) 70 Har’. L. Rev. 812 for a deconstruction of the concept of owner-
ship itself in exactly these terms.
‘-‘ See generally
. Bousquet & 1. Deslauriers, “I’exercise des droits hypoth~caires” in Barreau du
Qu6bec, ed., Cours deformation permanente: Sfiretds III (Montreal: Barreau du Qudbec, 1994).
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
commissoire, for example, are prohibited. Others, call them a “surete-proprift”,
where the security and property elements are more balanced-e.g. the instalment sale,
the legal right of resolution, and the sale with a right of redemption-are (in the man-
ner of the logic of Article 9) subjected to the regulatory controls that apply to the
paradigmatic security right: the hypothec. Still others, call them a “propridt6-sQret6”,
function as security. However, where there is no underlying logic of title transfer, no-
tably the finance lease, they are subjected to the publicity but not enforcement regime
of hypothecs. Finally, those transactions, call them a “Proprit&-s-aret6″, that might re-
semble on some logic a security device, but where the property element dominates-
e.g. consignments, assignments, exchanges, leases, and loans-are left to be regulated
solely according to the logic of assignments, exchanges, leases, etc., as the case may be.
In other words, the regime of the C.C.Q. is a well worked out amalgam of for-
malism and functionalism. It differs from the Article 9 regimes in that its formal
limitations on functionalism as applied to security devices are self-conscious. It also
differs from the Article 9 regimes in that it presumes that there is no necessary pri-
macy of functionalism as applied to secured transactions in comparison with, for ex-
ample, functionalism as applied to sale, mandate, or lease. This point can be best un-
derstood by identifying some of the central assumptions of Article 9 and contrasting
the specific approach taken in the C.C.Q. with the Article 9 regime.
First, Article 9 presumes that the most pleasing functional aesthetic is to treat
vendors and lenders similarly. This, to one trained in the civil law (and to the tradi-
tional common law lawyer), is counter-intuitive, in that one would expect a bonafide
prior owner of property to have a different interest in that property than a person who
is merely concerned with its realization value in the case of default. The C.C.Q. re-
tains some elements of what functionalists would desire, but in a manner that respects
the logic of a veritable vendor transaction. The hypothecary regime rests on a number
of constitutive formalities that limit lender financing; for example, physical persons
not carrying on an enterprise may not grant hypothecs over movables without deliv-
ery.3″ The regime of vendor financing, by contrast, has no such prudential prohibi-
tions. Thus, physical persons not carrying on an enterprise may purchase property un-
der an instalment sale,33 even though neither the lender nor the vendor can take a pur-
chase money hypothec 39
Second, Article 9 presumes that because there is a market for information about
any non-apparent security rights attaching to movable property, this market requires
an identical regime for enforcing whatever non-apparent rights are identified. The
… Art. 2683 C.C.Q.
… Art. 1745 C.C.Q.
.3 Art. 2683 C.C.Q. The inclusion of the vendor in this prohibition is an anomaly that resulted from
a last minute political compromise on the eve of the final vote adopting the C.C.Q. In amendments to
the Code tabled in December 1997, the government proposed to amend art. 2683 C.C.Q. to permit
non-possessory vendor’s hypothecs, an outcome that was foreseen in all the previous drafts of the
Code up until the moment of its final adoption.
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROITDE MCGILL
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includ-
C.C.Q. establishes a comprehensive publication requirement for hypothecs,’
ing the possibility of publication by possession for movable hypothecs,” but publica-
tion of other rights in movables is only required when specifically prescribed by law.”
Thus, sellers have certain rights flowing from their possession of property owned by
their purchasers, which are justified by the logic of the sales transaction. As with the
hypothec, possession is tne indicium of these rights. However, some of these rights
may also be projected for a limited time as against purchasers in possession, even
without registration-e.g. the legal right of resolution for thirty-day goods.” Where,
however, the interest is extended past a certain time, some other regime of publicity
may be indicated-hence the logic of registration of finance leases,'” most instalment
sales,” and rights of redemption granted to secure the loan of money.5″
Third, Article 9 presumes that because there may be an interest in protecting
debtors from predatory realization practices, the full procedural mechanisms for en-
forcement of security should apply equally to all situations involving security sales
and leases. Under the C.C.Q., the four enumerated hypothecary recourses are exclu-
sive,” and require a creditor to give a prior notice of its intention to exercise a re-
course,’ during which time the debtor has a right to remedy the default and defeat an
acceleration clause,” or force the realizing creditor to abandon the taking in payment
recourse?’ Should these procedures necessarily apply to sales and leases? After all,
enforcement of a hypothec over claims, which amounts to a deferred sale of the
claims in question, is only minimally regulated.”‘ Sometimes, but not universally,
these enforcement procedures are imposed where the logic of the sale is dominated by
its financing, rather than its property aspect-e.g. instalment sales” and sale with a
right of redemption.” In general, however, ordinary codal rules relating to the condi-
tions for resolving sales or resiliating leases, completed with a fully elaborated regime
of restitution of prestations in the law of obligations, fairly resolve the conflicts that
can arise in such cases without recourse to an artificial logic of secured lending. In-
deed, the Consumer Protection Act’ provides further regulation of sales financing by
‘”Art. 2663 C.C.Q.
“‘Art. 2702 C.C.Q.
m’Art. 2938(iii) C.C.Q.
“4’Art. 1741 C.C.Q.
‘”Art. 1847 C.C.Q.
Art. 1745(ii) C.C.Q.
Art. 1756 C.C.Q.
m Art. 2748 C.C.Q.
‘”Art. 2758 C.C.Q.
” Art. 2761 C.C.Q.
‘9’Arts. 2778-80 C.C.Q.
“‘ Arts. 2743-47 C.C.Q.
.” Art. 1745 C.C.Q.
.Art. 1756 C.C.Q.
m R.S.Q.c. P-40.1.
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
controlling creditor repossession and foreclosure,’5’ regardless of the form of the title
transaction,”‘ and also regulates creditor remedies in long-term consumer leases.”‘
Finally, Article 9 presumes that because foreclosure is a legitimate creditor re-
course provided the debtor has an adequate opportunity to remedy the default, indis-
criminate use of title to secure various obligations is also legitimate as long as the
publicity and enforcement regime for security is respected. This simply begs the
question: why is foreclosure a legitimate recourse? Might there not be some contracts,
for example, where creditors seek to create innominate title transactions that are para-
sitic upon the loan of money where, given the relationship of debtor and creditor, a
free-standing foreclosure recourse is abusive? For this reason, article 1801 C.C.Q.
deems as not written “[a]ny clause by which a creditor, with a view to securing the
performance of the obligation of his debtor, reserves the right to become the irrevoca-
ble owner of the property or to dispose of it” Thus, unless the attempted foreclosure
can be linked to a recognized security such as the hypothec, or a permitted title trans-
action such as the legal right of resolution, the instalment sale, or the sale with a right
of redemption, it will not be enforced.
F Conclusion on Quebec Law
The above discussion of Quebec law has been limited to the particular problems
of accommodating title security into a modernized regime of secured transactions. It
has not dealt with various other quasi-securities or legal techniques designed to gen-
erate an enforceable execution preference. Nor, more importantly, has it considered
one other legal technique that can be deployed in the manner of a title transaction to
secure the performance of an obligation: the trust. However much the trust device
opens new horizons in secured financing in Quebec, its fundamental logic is that of
title security.”‘ In view of this, it is perfectly consistent for the National Assembly to
subject the trust to the regulatory regime governing the enforcement of hypothecs in
exactly those circumstance where, like the instalment sale, it can be characterized as a
“sflret6-propri6t”.
To conclude, while the C.C.Q. acknowledges that title to property may be affected
to secure the performance of an obligation, it does not presume that just because title
transactions can be used to generate quasi-security rights, that they ought, by priority
over any other characterization, to be understood as security. It presumes, in other
… Ibid., ss. 132-50.
3516 Ibid., ss. 14, 15.
… Ibid., ss. 150.1-150.32.
… See the discussion in R.A. Macdonald, ‘The Security Trust: Origins, Principles and Perspectives”
in Meredith Memorial Lectures: Contemporary Utilisation of Non-Corporate Vehicles of Commerce
(Montreal: Faculty of Law, McGill University, 1997) 155.
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROITDE MCGILL
[Vol. 44
words, that there can be occasions where the very conceptual and moral differences
implied by ownership and security are at the heart of the parties’ desire to recur to title.” ‘
Conclusion
The notion that the secured creditor’s remedial right is
a “properly” right may derive much of its intuitive
force from the perception of the mortgage on Blackacre
as the paradigm of secured financing. Secured financ-
ing law, however, has become far more complex One of
the most significantforms of modem secured financing
… is financing on the security of the inventory or ac-
counts receivable of an enterprise. The collateral in
such arrangements is more of an accounting concept
than a specific piece of property. Once we move from a
mortgage on Blackacre to a floating lien … the “prop-
erty rights” perspective becomes blurred.”W
It seems clear, as was argued above in Parts I and II, that notwithstanding the
functionalist flavour of Article 9 and PPSA regimes, formalist modes of approach to
solving problems under the regimes or involving their security interests are simply in-
escapable.
The apparent contradiction between the substance of the transaction rule and the
continued importance of distinguishing between ownership and security under the
PPSAs may reflect a deeper tension in the law. This may be put as a tension between
resolving priority according to a property-based theory and according to a rights-
based theory. The former theory”‘ resonates with the sort of analysis under the PPSAs
of various forms of commercial arrangement against the chattel mortgage and the
conditional sale rehearsed in Part I, and considered further in Part II. The latter the-
ory36 flows readily from the perception in the quotation in this Part of the significance
of modem undertaking-based financing. This is a form of financing which it has been
seen to be the particular office of Article 9 and PPSA regimes to facilitate, ‘ but which
‘The advantages of this manner of conceiving the policy issues in PPSA jurisdictions are reviewed
in R.A. Macdonald, “Le droit des stret6s mobili~res et sa r6forme: principes juridiques et politiques
16gislatives” in P. Legrand, ed., Common Law: d’un sicle l’autre (Cowansville, Qc.: Yvon Blais,
1992) 423.
3 Rogers, supra note 182 [footnotes omitted].
,6’ Perhaps “metaphor” would be a better characterization. This is brought out in the view that a se-
curity interest is in the property of the debtor that is the point. This view was forcefully propounded
by Professor Charles Mooney in his presentation at the 15th Annual Workshop on Commercial and
Consumer Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 20-21 October 1995, a view he had pro-
pounded in more detail in his article with his fellow Reporter for the Drafting Committee to Revise
U.C.C. Article 9, Professor Steven L. Harris: see ‘Taking Debtors’ Choices Seriously”, supra note 51.
362For which as will be evident, the relevant metaphor is one of distribution of the debtor’s estate, as
on a bankruptcy.
363 See e.g. Scott, supra note 99 at 1786-87.
1999]
M. G. BRIDGE, ET AL. – LAW OF SECURED TRANSACTIONS
663
has its origins in common law Canada in the floating charge, discussed in its Cana-
dian context in Part II, and whose continuing significance to English law was re-
viewed in Part III. The requirement that the debtor have rights in the collateral in or-
der for a security interest to attach under the PPSAs, considered in Part I, might be
seen to represent a reaffirmation of property as the basis of a creditor’s right to claim
priority against third parties. However, this article attempted to show that the Article 9
drafter in fact appears deliberately to have refrained from using proprietary interest
language so that the courts would not be preoccupied with such matters. ‘ On the
other hand, the paramountcy of order of registration in preference to traditional nemo
dat quod non habeft ranking causes the Article 9 and PPSA framework to function in
much the same way among secured creditors as a bankruptcy code does among unse-
cured creditors. That is to say, the framework is aimed more at distributing the “se-
cured” portion of the debtor’s estate among competing creditors than with protecting
consensually-derived property rights. That view, in turn, can provoke inquiry in an
Article 9 and PPSA jurisdiction into the legitimacy of continuing to draw a sharp dis-
tinction, not only between secured creditors holding purchase money and other sorts
of security interests, but also between secured and unsecured creditors in general.
This inquiry, a matter of lively interest among scholars in Article 9 and PPSA ju-
risdictions,3
is another way of appreciating the point this article has endeavoured to
make about the problems in the functionalism that lies at the heart of the Article 9 and
PPSA enterprise. That last point is for us much more readily appreciated when con-
sidering the way Quebec has resisted importation of Article 9 and PPSA models, that
point being the burden of Part IV of this article. It is not that the models are techni-
cally deficient, or that their encouragement to work out modem schemes of analysis
of secured transactions has, regrettably for legal uniformity or modernism, been
sternly rebuffed in the name of legal atavism. Rather, the decision of the National As-
sembly of Quebec to organize the province’s formal categories so as to give the best
functional coherence with the aims and ambitions of contracting parties suggests the
conclusion that Article 9 may be addressing the wrong problem.
By this it is meant that the policy issues at stake in debtor-creditor law36 with spe-
cial reference to secured transactions are not best conceived of by asking whether one
should continue to be distinguishing the “functionally indistinguishable”, i.e., between
financing by title and financing by charge. Rather, they are best resolved by asking, as
a first question, what are the legal forms that suggest when transactions are “function-
3 For just this view, see the reference to the property metaphor in this connection, supra note 361.
3 For an introduction to its complex working out in common law doctrine, see Ziegel & Cuming,
supra note 115 at 194-95.
” For the flavour of the continuing character of which, see A. Schwartz, “Taking the Analysis of
Security Seriously” (1994) 80 Va. L. Rev. 2073, a comment on “Taking Debtors’ Choices Seriously”,
supra note 51.
367 For this approach to secured transactions law, see L. LoPucki & E. Warren, Secured Credit: A
Systems Approach (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).
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[Vol. 44
ally indistinguishable”. That is, on what basis should legislatures conclude that ven-
dors and lenders are involved in the same economic activity?
As the C.C.Q. reveals, probably better than any other source we have dealt with,
functionalism is not the answer. Functionalism is the question. After all, the merit of
any regime of legal regulation lies primarily in the character of the questions it asks:
does the way in which legal inquiry is organized permit lawyers and judges to ask
questions and debate solutions in a way that is recognizable to the parties to the trans-
action in question? Does the logic of the law take adequate cognizance of the under-
lying economic logic of the operation in question, or does it sacrifice the parties’ own
ordering of their priorities and expectations upon the altar of a lawyer’s conception of
aesthetic elegance?
