We live in an age of economic turmoil. The recent crises emphasize the need for modern, sophisticated rules to govern businesses in financial distress in order to realize value from distressed companies and to protect economic institutions. This book provides information for legislators, policymakers, lawyers, accountants, academics, and administrators who seek to understand the workings of insolvency laws. Guided by the World Bank’s Principles and Guidelines, it supplements the work in this field done by UNCITRAL.
Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.
This book reconsiders the treatment of distressed Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Recognising that insolvency systems traditionally suit larger enterprises, and that they do not always apply neatly to smaller entities, the book proposes a 'modular' approach designed to facilitate the treatment of smaller enterprises in distress.
Vanessa Finch provides an interesting look at corporate insolvency laws and processes. She adopts an interdisciplinary approach to place two questions at the centre of her discussion. Are current UK laws and procedures efficient, expert, accountable and fair? Are fundamentally different conceptions of insolvency law needed for it to develop in a way that serves corporate and broader social ends? Topics considered in this wide-ranging book include different ways of financing companies, causes of corporate failure and prospects for designing rescue-friendly processes. Also examined are alternative asset distribution of failed companies, allocations of insolvency risks and effects of insolvency on a company's directors and employees. Finch argues that changes of approach are needed if insolvency law is to develop with coherence and purpose. This book will appeal to academics and students at advanced undergraduate and graduate level, and to legal practitioners throughout the common law world.
To date, the use of empirical data in insolvency law analysis has been sporadic. This paper provides a conceptual framework for the use of data to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of insolvency systems. The paper analyzes the existing sources of data on insolvency proceedings, including general insolvency statistics, judicial statistics, statistics of insolvency regulators and other sources, and advocates for the design of special data collection mechanisms and statistics to conduct detailed assessments of insolvency systems and to assist in the design of legal reforms.
With the growth of international business and the rise of companies with subsidiaries around the world, the question of where a company should file bankruptcy proceedings has become increasingly complicated. Today, most businesses are likely to have international trading partners, or to operate and hold assets in more than one country. To execute a corporate restructuring or liquidation under several different insolvency regimes at once is an enormous and expensive challenge. With International Bankruptcy, Jodie Adams Kirshner explores the issues involved in determining which courts should have jurisdiction and which laws should apply in addressing problems within. Kirshner brings together theory with the discussion of specific cases and legal developments to explore this developing area of law. Looking at the key issues that arise in cross-border proceedings, International Bankruptcy offers a guide to this legal environment. In addition, she explores how globalization has encouraged the creation of new legal practices that bypass national legal systems, such as the European Insolvency Framework and the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. The traditional comparative law framework misses the nuances of these dynamics. Ultimately, Kirshner draws both positive and negative lessons about regulatory coordination in the hope of finding cleaner and more productive paths to wind down or rehabilitate failing international companies.
With the increasing interdependence of global economies, international relations are becoming a more complex system. Through this, the growth of any economy is dependent upon the ease of business transactions; however, in recent times, there has been a growing impact of corporate insolvency law. Corporate Insolvency Law and Bankruptcy Reforms in the Global Economy is an essential reference source that discusses the importance of insolvency laws in the financial architecture of emerging economies, as well as its fundamental issues. Featuring research on topics such as business restructuring, debt recovery, and governance regulations, this book is ideally designed for law students, policymakers, economists, lawyers, and business researchers seeking coverage on the jurisprudence and policy of corporate insolvency law in a globalized context.
Written by IMF's Legal Department, this book outlines the key issues involved in designing and implementing orderly and effective insolvency procedures, which play a critical role in fostering growth and competitiveness and may also assist in the prevention and resolution of financial crises. The book draws on lessons learned from firsthand experience by some of the IMF's 182 member countries. It includes an analysis of the major policy choices that countries need to address when designing an insolvency system, a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these choices, and a number of specific recommendations.
This edited volume is based on the European Law Institute's (ELI) project 'Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law'. The project ran from 2013 to 2017 under the auspices of the ELI and was conducted by Bob Wessels and Stephan Madaus, who were assisted by Gert-Jan Boon. The study sought to design (elements of) a legal framework that will enable the further development of coherent and functional rules for business rescue in Europe. This includes certain statutory procedures that could better enable parties to negotiate solutions where a business becomes financially distressed. Such a framework also includes rules to determine in which procedures and under which conditions an enforceable solution can be imposed upon creditors and other stakeholders despite their lack of consent. The project had a broad scope, and extended to consider frameworks that can be used by (non-financial) businesses out of court, and in a pre-insolvency context. Part I of this book, the ELI Instrument as approved by the ELI Council and General Assembly, features 115 recommendations on a wide variety of themes affected by the rescue of financially distressed businesses, such as the legal rules for professions and courts, treatment and ranking of creditors' claims, contract, corporate and labour law as well as laws relating to transaction avoidance. Part II consists of national reports that sketch the legal landscape in 13 States and of an 'Inventory Report on International Recommendations from Standard-Setting Organisations', both of which provided insight for the drafting of the Instrument. This volume is designed to assist those involved in a process of law reform and those setting standards for soft law in the business rescue context.
This book examines the effect of the adoption of the United Nations Committee on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency in five common law jurisdictions, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. It examines how each of those states has adopted, interpreted and applied the provisions of the Model Law, and highlights the effects of inconsistencies by examining jurisprudence in each of these countries, specifically how the Model Law affects existing principles of recognition of insolvency proceedings. The book examines how the UNCITRAL Guide to enactment of the Model Law has affected the interpretation of each of its articles and, in turn, the courts’ ability to interpret and hence give effect to the purposes of the Model Law. It also considers the ability of courts to refer to amendments made to the Guide after enactment of the Model Law in a state, thereby questioning whether the current inconsistencies in interpretation can be overcome by UNCITRAL amending the Guide.
