KILKA UWAG NA TEMAT GENEZY GIEŁDOWEGO KONTRAKTU OPCYJNEGO
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Date
2002
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Wydział Prawa i Administracji UAM
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SOME REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF STOCK MARKET OPTION CONTRACT
Abstract
Option contracts, because of their flexibility, became in the mid-1970’s an ideal instrument for
transferring investment risk away from institutions that wished to secure themselves onto speculators
ready to risk their funds to make large gains. At this turning point a new financial market
segment was created where risks involved in investment replaced potentially profitable property
as the object of trading. This is why, in a sense, the contemporary stock option market resembles
an insurance market rather than a stock market.
Option is regulated by the French and Italian law and although it is not regulated in the
German Civil Code (BGB), it is dealt with in judicial decisions and the doctrine. Since the middle
of the 19th century especially the doctrine has attempted to clarify the difference between preliminary
contract, option contract, and bid contract, at the same time trying to define the legal status
of option.
The situation is quite different under common law. Here option becomes the main component
of the contract conclusion procedure. With the development of trade in England and USA, in particular in the form of markets organized as commodity or financial exchanges, option contract
began to be applied on the market as an investment instrument for speculation or for bracing
against the risk of price and exchange rate fluctuations.
Similarly, in ancient Greece option became a financial instrument, the only difference being
that it would be controversial to consider the Greek option (.arrha) to be a derivative, especially
with so few existing trade records from that period. By contrast, there has been no mistaking such
a status of option on e.g. the Liverpool cotton market since at least the 18th c.
On contemporary markets the notion of option as a derivative is considered equivalent with
the construct of option contract developed under the common law. It is also very close to the
well-known classical Greek law of arratic contract. This similarity is striking not only in the view
of the time distance between the Greece of 6th c. and England and America of the 17-19th c. It is
the more surprising that it was virtually impossible for the ancient Greek classical law to affect in
any way the common law.
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Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 64, 2002, z. 4, s. 211-223.