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

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Casey Watters,Jinlu Liu
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/iir.1504

BOOK REVIEW

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

Casey Watters

1

| Jinlu Liu

2

1

Faculty of Laws, Bond University, Robina, Queensland, Australia

2

University College London, London, UK

Email: cwatters@bond.edu.au

1|INTRODUCTION

Since the first edition was published in 1993, Keay's Insolvency has been an essential text for

Australian insolvency practitioners and law students.

1

The eleventh edition of the text, publi-

shed in late 2022, provides a substantial revision that takes into account changes implemented

in response to the COVID-19 financial crisis and the 2019 personal insolvency debt agreement

reforms.

2

This review first provides an overview of the structure of the text, and then provides

an overview of select changes in the 11th edition.

Following the same approach as past editions, Keay's Insolvency is divided into five parts.

Part I, the introduction, only contains one chapter and provides a foundational framework

while focusing on the underlying policies of insolvency law. The chapter, which is 41 pages

long, provides a comprehensive overview of many issues that provide a foundation for those

new to insolvency before delving further into the text. Personal bankruptcy is the subject of Part

II, with six chapters ranging from the beginnings of the bankruptcy process (both voluntary

and compulsory bankruptcy) to post bankruptcy in Chapter 7. Part III continues with personal

insolvency by looking at arrangements outside of bankruptcy, including personal insolvency

agreements (Chapter 8) and debt agreements (Chapter 9). After personal insolvency, Parts IV

and V focus on corporate insolvency. Liquidation is the focus of Part IV (Chapters 10–17),

1

See also Christopher Symes, David Brown and Sulette Lombard, Australian Insolvency Law (fourth edn)

(LexisNexis, 2019).

2

See also Stacey Steele, ‘Directors’duties to prevent insolvent trading in a crisis: Responses to COVID-19 in Australia

and lessons from Germany’(2021) 30(S) International Insolvency Review S89-S110; Michael Murray and Jason Harris.

‘Rebuilding the structure of the Australian insolvency system’(2022) 1/2 Insolvency Law Bulletin 14–19.

Received: 11 May 2023 Accepted: 2 August 2023

DOI: 10.1002/iir.1504

© 2023 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

586 Int Insolv Rev. 2023;32:586–588.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/iir