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

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Rebecca Parry
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/iir.1505

BOOK REVIEW

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

Rebecca Parry

Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Email: rebecca.parry@ntu.ac.uk

Much scholarship has been focused in recent years on the legal approaches needed to support

struggling companies. Although corporate rescue has often been the objective this outcome is

not always easily achieved in practice. This book by John Wood offers a detailed reflection on

UK law, including a strong theoretical section which reviews existing scholarship and adds its

own gloss based around the concept of preservation of value to determine the optimal outcome.

In focusing on how corporate rescue can be achieved, as an alternative to business rescue

processes such as prepacks, the book has an important and refreshing focus that ties in with the

legislative priorities in many countries. The book has a modern feel, with discussion of many

recent UK examples. A strong central theme is how the world has changed since the time when

the UK's Cork Committee published its 1982 report which led to the Insolvency Act 1986 and

the decision-making processes that now operate regarding struggling companies. Account is

taken of the impact of Covid 19, as well as the rise in numbers of zombie companies and the

importance of intangibles.

The book begins with a clear and insightful introduction where there is a careful discussion

of the historical development of a rescue culture in the UK, including reflections on the

approach of the influential Cork Committee. Chapter 2 notes that a rescue culture did not

emerge overnight, although the Cork Report was an initial step in that direction, and the

progression of UK insolvency law is examined. In Chapter 3 there is an analysis of leading

theorizations of insolvency law. Theoretical discussions on insolvency law have commonly

often had regard to US scholarship of the 1980s to 1990s which, although ground-breaking at

the time, is largely tied to a central role for the courts. This literature does not map easily on to

systems that are less court-based, such as the UK's largely practitioner-driven system. Although

those theories are discussed in this chapter, alongside literature from further afield, the book

goes beyond in adding a detailed discussion of the concept of value and more particularly a

socio-legal approach of dynamic value extraction, recognizing that creditors are not the only

ones impacted by an insolvency.

Received: 28 June 2023 Accepted: 2 August 2023

DOI: 10.1002/iir.1505

© 2023 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

580 Int Insolv Rev. 2023;32:580–581.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/iir