The Law of Insolvency, Ian Fletcher (5th edn) (2017, Sweet and Maxwell, London), cxliii and 1098 pp, £295, ISBN 978‐0‐414‐02842‐5

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/iir.1288
• Date: 01 December 2017
• Author: Harry Rajak
• Published date: 01 December 2017

Book Review

The Law of Insolvency, Ian Fletcher

(5th edn) (2017, Sweet and Maxwell,

London), cxliii and 1098 pp, £295,

ISBN 978-0-414-02842-5

Harry Rajak*

University of Sussex

Insolvency has mushroomed in the separate but closely inter-related worlds of

scholarship and legal practice. Once almost non-existent in the academy, and

relegated, at best, to the dubious realms of legal practice, it now commands dignity

and the marked endeavour of a wide circle of scholars and practitioners. The

international significance of insolvency has surpassed all expectations and with it,

the relationship and collaboration among scholars across the globe. Ian Fletcher

has –for a long while now –been justifiably recognized both here and abroad

as the leading UK scholar in the field of insolvency.

He has been in the forefront of several significant developments in this field.

At a very early stage, he saw the importance of the relationship between

individual bankruptcy and corporate insolvency (the volume under review has

always covered both). This contributed to the recognition of the concept

underlying insolvency, namely debt –a subject of significant research by econo-

mists and sociologists. He is universally recognized as a leading scholar in the

field of international and cross border insolvency –afield which has grown

enormously in the wake of the dramatic rise in the mobility of trade across

national boundaries. And he has exemplified the extremely valuable collabora-

tion between scholarship and practice in a field where practitioners and judges

search for answers to wholly new problems, a search which more often than

not extends to the research and publications of scholars.

Thus, a new edition of a volume which has come to play a huge role in the

field of insolvency practice and scholarship in the UK, is a signal event. Fletcher’s

‘Fifth’–delayed so as to include both the fresh consolidation of the Insolvency

Rules and the Recast EU Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings –fulfils every

*E-mail: h.h.rajak@sussex.ac.uk

Copyright © 2017 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Int. Insolv. Rev., Vol. 26: 351–353 (2017)

Published online 24 August 2017 in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/iir.1288