Goode on principles of corporate insolvency law KristinvanZwieten, 5th edition, London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2018. cvi and 967 pp. + appendices and index, £259, ISBN 978‐0‐414‐03488‐8

• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/iir.1334

BOOK REVIEW

GOODE ON PRINCIPLES OF CORPORATE

INSOLVENCY LAW

Kristin van Zwieten

5th edition, London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2018. cvi and 967 pp. + appendices and index, £259, ISBN 978‐0‐414‐03488‐8

As a subject of study and practice, insolvency law has gained considerable ground since its

emergence as an adjunct of corporate law (in many common‐law jurisdictions) or even proce-

dural law (in some Continental countries). Since the financial crises that have occurred in this

century alone, with the prospect of yet another on the horizon, insolvency's place and currency

in practice and academia is assured. It is difficult to imagine a serious practitioner whose daily

work will not touch on insolvency, particularly in how to avoid or mitigate its effects through

restructuring. In academic life, it is truly common to see insolvency academics and research

units investigating the impact on law, society, and the economy of this most singular of subject

matters and presenting their discoveries at the many international conferences and seminars

devoted to this and ancillary topics.

Proof, in particular, that insolvency law has come to be viewed as a respectable object of aca-

demic interest is to be found in the work of a number of authors, who in the 1990s and early

2000s pioneered this subject into mainstream discourse. Of this group, a particular place was

enjoyed by the doyen of commercial law, Professor Sir Roy Goode QC, who took an interest

early on into the workings of insolvency. His magnum opus was first published in 1990, at a

time when insolvency law was a comparative novelty and the interest shown in it was still

nascent. It has since carried on through four more editions, the last of which examined here

has been produced under the authorship of Professor Kristin van Zwieten, a noted Oxford aca-

demic and colleague of Professor Goode's.

The internal arrangement of the text, now bound in dark blue and red, follows the tradition

of volumes devoted to insolvency and the orthodoxy of previous editions, in which the institu-

tions of winding up predominate. While the first part of the work explores the principles of

insolvency, examining in four chapters the history, foundations, principles, and concept of cor-

porate insolvency, the main part of this work starts with the framework of liquidation and asso-

ciated topics. This reflects the origins of the legal framework in this field with the historic

dominance of liquidation proceedings, rescue, and restructuring being relative latecomers to

the landscape. Thus, in this hierarchy, later insolvency procedures, including administrative

receivership and the rescue frameworks of administration, and other forms of restructurings,

including company voluntary arrangements, follow the chapters focused on winding up. These

are also joined by two key topics of insolvency law, the avoidance of transactions and directors'

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© 2019 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Received: 4 February 2018 Accepted: 5 February 2019

DOI: 10.1002/iir.1334

132 Int Insolv Rev. 2019;28:132–134.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/iir