The Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act, company charges and funding micro, small and medium enterprises under Nigerian law

Having attained a feverish pitch, the clamour for the reform of Nigeria’s law of secured transactions has culminated in the recent enactment of the Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act, 2017 by Nigeria’s National Assembly to amongst others ‘stimulate responsible lending to micro, small and medium enterprises.’ This thesis evaluates the impact of the Act on the Nigerian law of secured transactions and specifically, the implication of the autonomy it gives to companies to continue to grant charges, pursuant to the old system and presumably outside the ambit of the Act. The thesis hypothesizes that despite the Act’s obvious similarity to reformed systems of personal property security laws, a reform now being driven by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), expectations of the Nigerian Act having similar reformative impact and meeting its key objective of stimulating credit to MSMEs may be misconceived.