Corporate Rescue : An Overview of Recent Developments

Corporate rescue laws have long been recognized as a necessary alternative to liquidation. However, it is only in recent years that governments and virtually all major international economic interest groups have realised the important role that corporate rescue can play - not only in supporting businesses that are viable but experiencing temporary difficulties, but also in forestalling financial difficulties by requiring effective corporate governance processes, in resolving systemic financial crises, and in bolstering the economy. It is primarily to corporate rescue procedures and reforms adopted at the domestic level that this book is devoted. Individual chapters - each written by an expert or team of experts from the country under scrutiny - consider recent developments and prospects for the future in China, Cyprus, England and Wales, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Spain, and the United States. These countries were chosen because they reflect different stages of development in corporate rescue laws. Some have mature systems in their second or third stages of revision; some have relatively antiquated systems that have been inherited from, or modelled on, the laws of another jurisdiction; and some are transitional economies where the concept of corporate rescue is comparatively new. A final chapter covers important issues stemming from conflict of laws and supranational models and guidelines. It emerges clearly from these reform processes that, while no single optimal set of corporate rescue laws can be devised, there is a clearly discemible global movement under way toward reform in the service of preserving economic value at the company level. In the meantime, however, it is also clear that insolvency practitioners and the courts will need to take the initiative in applying and testing new laws to ensure their ultimate effectiveness. For this reason - in addition to the book's great practical and legal academic value - "Corporate Rescue" is sure to be widely read and used as a basic text for many years to come.