Wolf Theiss has advised Erste Group on its first fully digital issue of a borrower’s loan note via a blockchain platform in Europe. The issue was made in cooperation with ASFiNAG.
For the first time in Europe, such a capital market instrument was issued without a parallel conventional paper-based process. According to Wolf Theiss, “the key element was to ensure legal certainty and carefully map the blockchain-based processes that were used for the first time in Europe for such kind of transaction.”
ASFiNAG is an Austrian publicly owned corporation which plans, finances, builds, maintains, and collects tolls for the Austrian autobahns.
“This issue was a transaction under productive conditions,” explained Wolf Theiss Partner Claus Schneider. “The traditional issuance process is both complex and time-consuming from an administrative point of view since it takes several days and since numerous documents have to be managed. Thanks to digitization, these processes are now a lot faster and offer more transparency and certainty for all parties involved.”
The Wolf Theiss team included Partner Claus Schneider and Counsel Matthias Schimka.
