Contexte

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Note added at 6 heures (2013-05-29 05:44:58 GMT)
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débenture

If the writer is using the word 'debenture' here because he or she has seen it in the unofficial (but still authoritative) English translation of the Swiss Civil Code, then the word is probably being used in a sense that is now obsolete *everywhere in the Anglosphere*!

There are several instances of 'debenture' in the English translation of the Code, but the first of them is telling: Art. 514, B. Debentures and voluntary payment, starts off as follows:

"A promissory note or bill of exchange signed by the gambler or bettor to cover the sum gambled or bet may not be enforced even following delivery of the instrument, subject to the rights that securities confer on bona fide third parties."

The other two instances are about corporate debt securities, which is the current meaning of the term (although the defining features of what are understood to be debentures differ dramatically in the UK from the US/from Canada/from elsewhere).

But the only meaning common to all three instances -- the gambler's promissory note and the company's debt security -- is the original, historical 17thC meaning of the word, defined by the OED as
"A certificate or voucher certifying that a sum of money is owing to the person designated in it; a certificate of indebtedness."
(The etymological source is purported to be the Latin 'debentur' = "there are due or owing", supposed to be the first word of the certificate.)

If 'debenture law' here means no more than the ordinary commercial law applicable to promissory notes, then it probably has nothing at all to do with corporate debt securities.