Outright purchases of sovereign debt by the European System of Central Bank (ESCB) which is composed by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks of the member states has been a topic of debate among legal scholars since the ECB started to purchase covered bonds with underlying sovereign debt and the Securities Markets Program (SMP) aiming to support some member states in difficulties. The controversies increased when the ECB publicized its decision to install Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), which were later judged as not conforming with European Union law by the German Federal Constitutional Court. For this reason it referred the case to the European Court of Justice where it is still pending. New legal questions arose when the ESCB started its debt purchasing program which is known under the name Quantitative Easing (QE). This has some similarities with OMT but also some distinctive differences which pose new legal questions.
Working Lunch with
IMFS Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Siekmann
Endowed Chair of Money, Currency and Central Bank Law
12:00-1:00 p.m.Room "Commerzbank", House of Finance
Goethe University, Campus Westend
Please register at lectures[at]imfs-frankfurt[dot]de by April 26, 2015.