ABSTRACT
The private international law rules governing the ownership of shares have long rested on the modalities of their transfer, which afforded considerable significance to the form they take (registered or bearer). This article seeks to demonstrate that this approach, which is of doctrinal origin, does not in reality determine the applicable law, having regard to the objective pursued by company law when it mandates the registered form. In reality, the legal order of the registered office retains today, as it has always done, its authority over the proprietary status of registered shares, regardless of the location of any agent appointed to maintain the register. The mode of representation of the share-including inscription within a distributed ledger technology should have no influence on this question. This solution may nonetheless be displaced, from the standpoint of international jurisdiction, by the insolvency of the holder.
Gridel, Augustin, Registered Shares in Private International Law – A French and European Perspective (May 27, 2026).
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