Global law firm Clifford Chance has advised the European Investment Bank (EIB) on the issuance of a fixed-rate 100 million euro-denominated digital bond. The five-year bond will bear interest at a rate of 2.545% per annum and was issued and recorded using private blockchain-based technology via Goldman Sachs’ tokenisation platform (GS DAP™). Like for the EIB transaction on the HSBC Orion platform earlier this week, settlement was once again facilitated during the primary issuance process by a private permissioned blockchain platform developed and operated by the French Central Bank called DL3S, as part of the Eurosystem’s exploratory work to test distributed ledger technology for the settlement of wholesale transactions in central bank money.

Steve Jacoby, Partner at Clifford Chance in Luxembourg: “This transaction is the fifth digital bond that the EIB has done under Luxembourg law and its sixth in total. We are delighted to have accompanied the EIB once again.”

Alexander Tollast, Counsel at Clifford Chance Paris, continues: “We have had the chance to work on some fantastic projects during the Eurosystem’s exploratory work in a number of jurisdictions and product areas and we are honoured to close this exciting period with another EIB digital bond, given the EIB’s ongoing importance to the development of DLT in financial markets.”

The European Clifford Chance team advising the EIB comprised Steve Jacoby, Alexander Tollast, Boika Deleva, and Federica Gamen.

A&O Shearman SCS acted as counsel to the joint lead managers: Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE, DZ Bank AG, and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.