GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Panagiotis (Notis) Sardelas, Matina Kagkelari and Anna Zlatoudi, Sardelas Petsa Law Firm
state guarantees in their securitised portfolios. In addition, the Greek state, public entities and general government entities, including those directly or indirectly controlled by the state, may not acquire any junior or mezzanine bonds that are issued in the context of securitisations for which a Greek state guarantee has been pro - vided or a request for a Greek state guarantee has been submitted, under the provisions of the HAPS Law. The HAPS Law prescribes the priority of pay - ments under the securitisations intended to be guaranteed under the HAPS programme. The servicing of the securitised claims is mandato - rily assigned to a servicer, who at the time of entry into force of the state guarantee is not con - trolled by the transferor, pursuant to International Accounting Standard 10 (independent servicer). The main conditions for the entry into force of the state guarantee are the transfer to private investors by way of sale, against positive value, of at least 50% +1 of the junior notes issued, and the transfer to private investors by way of sale at a positive price of an adequate number of junior notes and, if applicable, an adequate number of mezzanine notes, for the derecog - nition of the securitised claims in the financial statements of the transferor and its group, on a consolidated basis, in accordance with the IFRS. In addition, following the recent amend - ment of the HAPS Law, senior notes should be rated BB+, Ba1, BB+, BB (high) or higher by a recognised rating agency registered in the rel - evant register of the European Central Bank (the relevant rating provided in the initial text of the HAPS Law was ΒΒ-, Ba3, ΒΒ-, BBL or higher). Any second rating should be carried out by a rating agency registered in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EC) 1060/2009. This
second rating cannot be lower than BB+, Ba1, BB+ or BB (high). The HAPS Law explicitly provides that the Greek state guarantee constitutes an express, irrevo - cable, unconditional and on first demand guar - antee, pursuant to the provisions of Articles 213, 214 and 215 paragraph 1 of the CRR. Several transactions for very large portfolios of bank loan and credit receivables have been con - cluded by the Greek systemic banks under the HAPS Law since 2019. 4.13 Entities Investing in Securitisation See 2.6 Investors and 4.12 Participation of Government-Sponsored Entities . As mentioned in 4.5 Activities of Rating Agen- cies , under the Securitisation Law, mutual funds and investment holding companies established in Greece may only invest in notes that have been assigned an “investment grade” by an internationally accepted rating agency. 4.14 Other Principal Laws and Regulations There are no other relevant principal laws or regulations. 5. Synthetic Securitisation 5.1 Synthetic Securitisation Regulation and Structure Synthetic securitisations do not qualify as “secu - ritisations” within the meaning of the Securiti - sation Law, because in synthetic securitisations the ownership of the securitised receivables is not transferred to the SPE but remains with the originator. In synthetic securitisations, the risk of the securitised claims is transferred from the
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