Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 section 69

Operator-instruction deemed to be an instrument of conveyance or transfer

Section 69 provided that an operator-instruction made through the CREST settlement system was treated as an executed instrument transferring securities, and it included anti-avoidance rules preventing the netting off of separate sale contracts.

• An operator-instruction effecting a transfer of securities through CREST was deemed to be an executed instrument of transfer, dated on the day the instruction was generated.
• Transfers of an equitable interest in securities through CREST were deemed to be effected by the relevant operator-instruction, with one deemed generated on the transfer date where none actually existed.
• Where a CREST transfer contained two or more sale contracts, each was treated as a separate transaction for stamp duty and could not be netted off.
• Even where netting produced a nil net settlement, the individual transfers were still treated as separate, chargeable transactions.