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Article
Structured Notes Fiasco in the Courts: A Study of Relevant Judgments in Taiwan between 2009 and 2010
Academia Sinica Law Journal [中研院法學期刊]
  • Christopher Chao-hung CHEN, Singapore Management University
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
3-2012
Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse relevant judicial decisions in Taiwan regarding structured notes sold to retail investors. Regarding pre-sale disputes, one issue was that investors failed to read contractual documents properly before signing contracts, so there was a question whether they could later claim a bank’s violation of its duty to explain. This article favours the view that an investor’s signature may exempt a bank’s duty, provided that investors are made aware of relevant warnings. In addition, for suitability assessment, relevant judgments show that customers were too easily classified as active investors based on a simple questionnaire. This may violate the spirit of the suitability rule. Moreover, courts or regulators must clarify the nature of post-sale duty to report and whether a bank has a duty to advise a client under a trust relationship. Furthermore, to look at the big picture, regulators should review the nature of investment in overseas structured notes via non-discretionary trust with a domestic bank in order to construct an efficient way to regulate such forms of investment and to justify the effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms so as to offer complete protection to retail investors.

Keywords
  • Structured notes,
  • structured financial products,
  • derivatives,
  • duty to explain,
  • suitability,
  • duty to report,
  • sale restriction,
  • dispute resolution,
  • investor protection,
  • trust,
  • Taiwan
Publisher
中央研究院法律學研究所籌備處
City or Country
Taipei
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
http://hslib.sinica.edu.tw/?q=en/tocs/3528
Citation Information
Christopher Chao-hung CHEN. "Structured Notes Fiasco in the Courts: A Study of Relevant Judgments in Taiwan between 2009 and 2010" Academia Sinica Law Journal [中研院法學期刊] Iss. 10 (2012) p. 161 - 224 ISSN: 1995-753X
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/christopher_chen/14/