Economic and financial section > Committee of Jurists for the suppression of the falsification of securities

uiXa.
[Communicated to the Council
and the Members of the League.]
Official No.: C- 542. ML 379. 1937. IT.A.
Geneva, November ist, 1937.
LEAGUE OF 'NATIONS
COMMITTEE OF JURISTS FOR THE SUPPRESSION
OF THE FALSIFICATION OF SECURITIES*
REPORT TO THE COUNCIL ON THE WORK OF THE MEETING
HELD IN PARIS ON OCTOBER 29th AND 30TH, 1937
The Committee of Jurists, set up under the resolution of the Council of the League of Nations
of May 25th, 1937 (ninety-seventh session), relating to the suppression of the falsification of
securities, has the honour to submit the following report on the work of the meeting held in Paris
on October 29th and 30th, 1937.
Present:
M. V. Pospisil, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, former Governor
of the National Bank of Czechoslovakia, representing the Financial Committee
( Chairman).
Sir John Fischer Williams, C.B.E., K.C.
M. V. V. Pella, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Roumania at
The Hague, Professor of Penal Law at the University of Bucharest.
M. S. Servais, Minister of State, Honorary Prosecutor-General at the Brussels Court
of Appeal.
The following representative of the International Criminal Police Commission also attended
the meeting in the capacity of assessor:
M. H. Corby, Police Commissioner at the Surete Nationale (Paris).
1. In its report to the Council, dated May ist, 1937, the Financial Committee stated that,
in the light of the information at its disposal, international action to prevent the falsification of
securities was likely to prove effective. Acting upon this suggestion, the Council, in the resolution
mentioned above, instructed the Committee of Jurists to prepare a detailed report on this question
and, if possible, a draft Convention or a Protocol extending to securities the provisions of the
International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency of April 20th, 1929.
2. In conformity with these instructions, the Committee first of all endeavoured to determine
for which securities international co-operation to prevent and punish falsification should be
provided. For practical reasons, it would not be possible, the Committee considered, for the
protection afforded by an international Convention to cover all the many and varied forms of
securities. It accordingly decided to select securities in which falsification can least easily be
detected in the course of transaction and handling, and which are most frequently falsified.
3. According to the information furnished by the International Criminal Police Commission,
securities issued by States, public bodies and big companies, cheques—particularly travellers’
cheques—and circular letters of credit are the documents which have most frequently been
falsified during recent years. Owing to the nature of the interests they damage or to the manner
in which they are committed, cases of such falsification are very often more than offences against
the public order of a single particular State.
1 This word, which arises from the more accurate French expression “ pap levs de valeur ”, has been adopted
as the English equivalent.
3380 — S.d.N. 1.230 (F.) 1.080 (A.). 11/37. Imp. Kundig.