Introduction
The terms ‘international insolvency’ and ‘cross-border insolvency’ have no designate meaning but are commonly taken to be interchangeable and to refer to insolvencies which derives from cross-border trading or which include the application, or possible application, of the insolvency laws of two or more jurisdictions. An international insolvency is generally characterized by one or more of the following features: the debtor’s business is conducted in different countries; the creditors are situated in different countries; the assets are located in different countries; there are parallel proceedings in different countries.
There are five potential sources of jurisdiction of English courts regarding the insolvency of companies , namely the European Union (EU) Insolvency Regulation 2000 (EC Insolvency Regulation), the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency as embodied in Sch.1 to the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (Model Law), the Insolvency Act 1986, the Banking Act 2009 in relation to banks, and the common law conflict of laws rules governing the insolvency of companies.
This article will discuss the issues of cross-border corporate insolvency in the context of the collapse of the Lehman Brothers by giving some overviews on the case first. Then, it will discuss the issues in details. There will be an overview of the laws applicable in Lehman’s case and the discussion on the resolution of the issues in the next part. After that, the article will suggest few improvements that can be done to such resolution. The last part will then conclude the whole article. This analysis shows that for a ‘giant’ multi-national company like Lehman Brothers which involve in cross-border insolvency, a very good cooper...
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...e for the adoption of formal procedures for determining a debtor's home country to ensure the forum shopping could be more efficiently curbed; and allowing for all of the legal entities in a large multinational corporate group, such as Lehman, which constitute an ‘integrated economic unit’ to file in the same venue. As mentioned earlier, it is agreed that future protocols and the UNCITRAL Model Law would be improved if economically integrated entities of a corporate group had the same home country.
In short, a very good cooperation between countries involved in cross-border corporate insolvency proceedings like Lehman is much needed in order to manage and administer the proceedings effectively. There is no point of having laws or model to govern the cross-border insolvency proceedings if the countries involved are refusing to adopt such laws for the benefit of all.
Sovereign lending, throughout history, has been marked by occurrences of partial default and repudiation by governments of all kind; from medieval princes to dictators to democratic regimes. In the 1970s lending to lesser-developed countries led to the rescheduling and partial defaults in the 1980s. Even the sustainability of the debt of nations such as Belgium, Canada, Italy and even the United States is not free from suspect.
In conclusion it is clear the pari passu principal in practice is rarely achieved and is quite frankly easy to refer to as a glorified theoretical doctrine as it has been severely eroded. This being said it is impossible to discount the pari passu theory as a fundamental principle in corporate insolvency law as although not overly effective in the capacity it was created, the principle spreads all across insolvency law promoting fairness and efficiency in the distribution of assets in insolvency proceedings from the hierarchy and classes of claims to other rules for proportionality. It is a principle which advocates creditor protection which is a pillar of corporate insolvency law.
In the world of money, firms including banks and nonbank financial companies face adversaries and often fail. When they do, most failures do not result in extreme externalities. In other words, loss of the firm does not place its counterparties into a troubled position. Ergo, the firm would go through a usual resolution process provided by the government. But, some large firms undergo a “special” treatment because of the government’s fear that its losses may have disproportionately big adverse externalities on the economy thus threaten the financial stability. These are the firms to which “too big to fail”, also known as “TBTF” apply. They are also referred to “too important to fail”, “too big to liquidate”, “too big to unwind and, most recently “too big to jail”. (Kaufman, 2013) Because of their capability to melt down the entire economy in the case of crisis, they are showered with public funding along with continuous bailouts. These unconditional supports have fostered generations and generations of controversy. The controversy dealt with in what extend should the government intervene with the financial firms, has it derived the economy to the desired result and flaws of this ironic concept.
The Bankruptcy Code can be found under Title 11 of the United States Code (U.S.C.); this code is then divided into chapters 1, 3, and 5 which provide provisions concerning bankruptcy case and debtors. These chapters are then applied to six specific types of bankruptcy relief classified as Chapters 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 15. For businesses companies they mainly file for Chapters 7, 11, 12, and 13. Even though bankruptcy is a federal law, state laws can apply its own ba...
Lehman was very highly leveraged and was taking no steps to get borrowing under control. After delivered of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on September 7th and Lehman announced a large third quarter loss three days later the bank began to have pronounced liquidity problems. But the Lehman had failed to take any decisions. Some New York bank also asked to firm that was there any reasonable plan to control the financial crisis but there was no plan. Then the government had declared that no public money would flow to Lehman bros. Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. filed for bankruptcy.
According to Corporation Act 2001 s124(1), it illustrates that ‘’A company has the legal capacity and powers of an individual both in and outside the jurisdiction” . As it were, company as a legal individual must be freely with all its capital contribution shall embrace liability for its legal actions and obligations of the company’s shareholders is limited to its investment to the company. This ‘separate legal entity’ principle was established in the case of Salomon v Salomon & Co Ltd [1987] as company was held to have conducted the business as a legal person and separate from its members. It demonstrated that the debt of company is belonged to the company but not to the shareholders. Shareholders have only right to participate in managing but not in sharing the company property. Besides ,the Macaura v Northern Assurance Co Ltd [1925] demonstrates that the distinction between the shareholders and company assets. It means that even Mr Macaura owned almost all the shares in the company, he had no insurable interest in the company’s asset. The other recent case is the Lee v Lee’s Air Farming Ltd [1961] which illustrates that the distinct legal entities between employee ad director allows Mr.Lee function in dual capacities. It resulted that the corporation can contract with the controlling member of the corporation.
The re-use of an insolvent company is protected by UK insolvency law. It helps to protect the interests of investors and creditors are not damaged by a lack of transparency relating to the director's involvement with an insolvent company, and continued involvement with its phoenix.
Over the years, the process of declaring bankruptcy has become incredibly simple. Because of this change, the number of people declaring bankruptcy is at an all time high. Today, bankruptcy is a common thing among companies and individuals alike. The American bankruptcy law allows people to avoid paying their debts by offering the debtors a discharge without a harsh consequence. By not having repercussions for their actions, bankruptcy filers often plan future bankruptcies, allowing them to steal even more money from creditors with no punishment. There are 13 different chapters in the bankruptcy system with the principal chapters being 7,11, and 13. You can only file for bankruptcy under these three chapters, the others are there to explain how the system works. Under Chapter 7, a person’s debts are wiped away while under chapters 11 and 13, debts are frozen while the debtor figures out a way to repay them. The people filing Chapter 7 are stealing money from creditors who are trying to help them. It is one’s moral duty to pay back his debts and one should be disgraced and embarrassed if they borrowed money they cannot pay back. Over 1,400,000 people filed for bankruptcy in 1998 under Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13. 75% of them were under Chapter 7, leaving “retailers, bankers, and credit-card companies” with $40 billion in unpaid debts (Kopecki 5) (Pomykala 16). The use of different reforms could cut down on the number of Chapter 7 filings and put responsibility back on the debtor. Declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy is ethically and morally wrong and through different reforms this current “right” would be considered a crime.
This paper provides an overview of the crisis, outlines the major causes of the crisis, examine alternative solutions to the problem
Among the study’s findings were that the deciding factor of the predictor of bankruptcy should not be only a few ratios, as the measure of a company’s financial solvency may differ as the firm’s situations differ. The important question is to which ratios are to be used and of those ratios chosen, which ratios are given priority weight.
In the midst of a worldwide recession caused by the financial crisis in the housing market, Lehman Brothers was an investment bank that suffered a striking failure. As an investment bank, Lehman Brothers did “business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading, research, investment management,
Corporate law is an area of law that directly relates to dealings with corporations within our legal system. “In Ontario, law compromises of statutes, regulations and cases. This means that to understand the law in any area, you must familiarize yourself with the statute or statutes that relate to that area, check related regulations where required, and read cases that show you how the courts have applied those statutes and regulations in real life situations” (Corporate Law for Ontario Businesses, 2012, pg. 2). In this paper I will be doing just that. I am going to be looking at a particular case that happened and examine how the courts applied legal regulations to a real life situation. I will also be examining what it means for a corporation to be a separate legal entity, as well as the level of importance a shareholder has within a company. All of these topics directly relate to the case I will be examining and are important to knowing in order to understand why the court made the decision that they did. Lastly, I will be discussing my own personal opinions on the case and the decision made by the courts.
The expression "globalization" is generally utilized as a part of business rings and matters of trade and profit to depict the expanding internationalization of businesses for merchandise and administrations, the budgetary framework, companies and commercial ventures, innovation, and rivalry. In the globalized economy, partitions and national points of confinement have liberally diminished with the departure of tangles to market access. Furthermore, there have been decreases in transaction expenses and layering of time and separation in global transactions.
The Government should allow some foreign banks with strong financial strength, good corporate governance of the bank acquired weakness. The weak banks, as defined by the VAFI, the bank has weak business administration, with the NPL ratio is very high.
Ferguson et al. International financial stability. Geneva: International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies, 2007. Print.