International Insolvency Review

Issue Number

Latest documents

• Pilkington on creditor schemes of arrangement and restructuring plans (3rd edition). By Christian Pilkington, Will Stoner, London: Sweet & Maxwell. 2022. pp. xxxvii and 325. £315. ISBN: 978‐0‐414‐1002‐2
• An empirical snapshot of English corporate insolvencies

  The article presents an empirical study of English corporate insolvencies initiated between December 2016 and December 2018. The research focuses on creditors' voluntary liquidations (‘CVLs’), the most frequently occurring insolvency procedure. It also looks at a few administrations and compares findings with CVLs to analyse which procedure may lead to better returns to creditors. The article highlights key statistics such as the average costs of procedures and the impact of the prescribed part fund on distribution. Further, the study assesses HMRC's potential debt recovery following its return as a preferential creditor and discusses whether Crown preference is justified. Given that data analysis on the practicalities of distribution during insolvency is lacking, the empirical study arguably helps fill a gap in the literature. Essentially, the article provides quantitative data on the practicalities of distribution and assesses the impact of the order of priority on repayment to creditors.

• Small and state‐funded: An empirical study of liquidations in Scotland

  There is significant scope for empirical research in the field of corporate insolvency law. This paper seeks to make a valuable contribution to this field of research. It features analysis of data regarding all insolvent liquidations in Scotland that had their end point within a period of a year, specifically 1 October 2019‐30 September 2020 (even if the liquidations commenced prior to that period). A dataset was compiled using information from final accounts documentation for liquidations available from the UK's companies register. Following the introduction, the paper provides background and context for corporate insolvency in Scotland, with particular reference to liquidation and the rules relating to creditors. The section also includes comparisons with the law of England and Wales. The paper then moves on to discuss the empirical methodology adopted and how the relevant data was obtained. This is followed by results and analysis focused on: the asset values of companies in the study, the lifespan of those companies, the timespan of their liquidations, the levels of liquidation expenses, the recoveries of creditors (including secured, preferential and ordinary unsecured creditors), and the role of HMRC in liquidations, as a petitioner and in terms of paying liquidation expenses. The paper contains a number of significant findings regarding each of these matters. It supports the case for a streamlined liquidation procedure for smaller companies and for the introduction of an official receiver in Scotland (while also justifying the existence of the official receiver in England and Wales). Lastly, after the identification of some limitations regarding the analysed data, the paper highlights potential lines of further research building upon this study, including expanding the time periods examined, comparing the data for Scotland with data for other jurisdictions, most obviously England and Wales, and the consideration of corresponding data for other insolvency procedures.

• Keay's insolvency: Personal and corporate law and practice (11th edition). By Michael Murray, Jason Harris, Sydney: Thomson Reuters. 2022. pp. 1052. 181 AUD. ISBN: 978‐2‐4743‐2539‐4
• Corporate finance for lawyers (1st edition) By Rolef de Weijs, Joost de Vries, Aart Jonkers, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 2023. pp. viii and 300. £120. ISBN: 978‐2‐03530‐202‐4
• Guest editorial: Insolvency‐related judgments and war‐related claims—Recent court practice in Ukraine
• The interpretation and value of corporate rescue (1st edition). By John Wood, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 2022. pp. 252. £90. ISBN: 978‐1‐83910‐139‐7
• Debt restructurings, debt grifting and the limits of contractualism

  This article critically examines corporate restructuring plans and schemes in the United Kingdom and United States and third‐party releases in the context of such corporate restructurings. So far, the practice has been more extensively examined in the United States rather than the United Kingdom and the practice has been castigated as ‘debt grifting’, that is, third parties getting the benefit of a bankruptcy discharge without going through the formal bankruptcy process. This article acknowledges some of these criticisms. It also suggests that, if third‐party releases become more widespread in the United Kingdom, this is likely to militate against the success of the United Kingdom as an international corporate restructuring venue. This is particularly the case if the underlying debt is disputed or gives rise to social or political controversy. The article is divided into five parts. After the first introductory part, the second part will examine how debts are restructured in the large corporate context in the United Kingdom and how third‐party releases are important for this endeavour. The third part will examine the equivalent position in the United States. The fourth part explores how the restructuring solutions currently on the table push up against the limits of contractually derived solutions. The final part concludes.

• INSOL Europe Yearbook 2022: Restructuring and insolvency tools in times of crisis (1st edition). INSOL Europe, Nottingham: INSOL Europe. 2022. pp. xiv and 318. Free to members. ISBN: 978‐2‐4743‐2539‐4
• Executory contracts in insolvency law: A global guide (2nd edition). By Jason Chuah, Eugenio Vaccari, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 2023. pp. 672. £220. ISBN: 978‐1‐80392‐341‐3

Featured documents

• Crypto‐claimants and bitcoin bankruptcy: Challenges for recognition and realization
• Insolvency proceedings from a sustainability perspective

  Sustainability is a wide concept including environmental, economic, social/culture, and political dimensions. Currently, sustainability research is a rich scientific discipline producing a significant number of research papers. However, sustainability in the context of insolvency proceedings has...

• Parallel Reorganizations under the Recast European Insolvency Regulation – Selected EU Law Issues

  The Recast European Insolvency Regulation (EIR) (Regulation 2015/848) repealed the rules in Articles 3(3) and 27 of the original EIR (Regulation 1346/2000) that required that secondary insolvency proceedings take the form of a liquidation (winding‐up). As a result, European debtors may now attempt...

• The Future Direction of China's Cross‐border Insolvency Laws, Related Issues and Potential Problems

  The enactment of bankruptcy laws by the People's Republic of China (PRC or China) in 2006 was a necessary step in the development of its economy. This law represented a significant modernisation of the insolvency framework, supporting the transforming economy, but it was also a law of political...

• The Shifting of Directors' Duties in the Vicinity of Insolvency

  Directors are obviously critical to the management of companies, and perhaps even more so when a company is in financial difficulties. This paper examines the position of directors when their company is in the vicinity of insolvency. It provides an analytical exposition of the law that exists in...

• Bankruptcy: What is left for the creditors? A Belgian exploratory study

  It is sometimes alleged that in cases of bankruptcy, there is often not much left for the creditors, especially for the ordinary unsecured creditors. This article examines, in an exploratory way, what the different classes of creditors, depending on their priority position, recover in cases of...

• The role of stakeholders on rejection of bankruptcy applications in the case of “poverty” of the estate: A Polish case study

  The aim of this article is to supplement the Law and Economics area of science with regard to the scope of the ex ante effectiveness of bankruptcy law using the example of Poland. Bankruptcy law is effective in the ex ante stage when it eliminates from the market insolvent entrepreneurs who cannot...

• Preference Transaction Avoidance in Ghana: Has the Liquidator's burden changed?

  Financially distressed companies sometimes conceive plans to pay off certain creditors before petitioning the Court for winding up. This last‐minute payment referred to as a preference transaction puts the preferred creditor in a better position than the rest of the company's creditors because the...

• The European Insolvency Regulation and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross‐Border Insolvency

  This article compares the Recast European Insolvency Regulation of 2015 with the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross‐Border Insolvency of 1997, focussed on their scope of application, international jurisdiction and the coordination of main and secondary proceedings. The scopes of both catalogues of norms...

• Pre‐Insolvency Proceedings: A Normative Foundation and Framework By Nicolaes Tollenaar Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019. 320 pp., £75, ISBN 978‐01‐98799‐92‐4