Washington and Lee Law Review Volume 37 | Issue 3 Article 2 Summer 6-1-1980 Toward the Uncertificated Security: A Congressional Lead for States to Follow Egon Guttman Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr Part of the Securities Law Commons Recommended Citation Egon Guttman, Toward the Uncertificated Security: A Congressional Lead for States to Follow, 37 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 717 (1980), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol37/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington and Lee Law Review at Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington and Lee Law Review by an authorized editor of Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Washington and Lee Law Review Member of the National Conference of Law Reviews Volume XXXVII Summer 1980 Number 3 TOWARD THE UNCERTIFICATED SECURITY: A CONGRESSIONAL LEAD FOR STATES TO FOLLOW* EGON GUTTMAN** The development of the concept of the uncertificated security and of the policy leading to the immobolization of the certificated security was accelerated by the "paperwork crunch" of the late 1960's.1 An explosion in the volume of trading had occurred. A system designed to handle an average three million share trading day was incapable of dealing with the thirteen million share trading day common in the late 1960's.2 The resul- tant breakdown in the securities processing mechanism caused chaos as the number of errors in recording transactions multiplied.3 The securities * 1980 Egon Guttman ** Professor of Law, Washington College of Law, the American University; Visiting Professor of Law, Howard University Law School; Adjunct Professor, The Johns Hopkins University.