2^nd Semester

General principles of corporate and individual insolvency

None

This module aims to provide students with a critical and advanced understanding of the theoretical foundations of insolvency law, both as it applies to insolvent individuals and as it applies to corporations.  In particular, students will analyse the similarities and differences in the issues that arise when individuals and companies become insolvent and in legal response to these issues, and assess the validity of the hypotheses about the functions and rationale of insolvency procedures presented in the theoretical literature on insolvency law.

Knowledge and Understanding

At the end of the course, students should:

·             Be able to discuss and analyse the functions and rationale of insolvency

·             Have a good understanding of insolvency procedures

·             Be able to critically evaluate the aetiological theory in relation to business failure and individual over-indebtedness

·             Be able to understand and discuss the policy behind legislative developments in the and other Jurisdictions and their potential social and economic effects

Skills

At the end of the course, students should have furthered their command of the following skills so as to have the ability to:

·              Carry out research on a topic, which has both commercial and socio-legal aspects and use a variety of electronic and paper sources

·             Evaluate the methodological and ideological credence of those sources

·             Critically evaluate law, policy and procedure

·             Appraise the impact of new law on large and small businesses and on consumer debtors

·             Construct a principles argument and critically evaluate arguments of others orally and in writing

·             Develop independence in thought and argument and the confidence to question their own views

·             Design proposals for new policy and law and assess the practical impact such as proposals

·             Introduction to basic principles

·             Justifications for imposing compulsory collective regimes

·             Analysis of insolvency procedures

·             Alternative responses to insolvency

·             Assets available for distribution

·             Administration of procedures

·             Treatment of individual debtors and company managers

·             International cross-border insolvency

8 x 3-hour seminars.  The seminars will be interactive and students will be expected to come prepared for the seminar and engage actively in discussions

Milman Personal Insolvency Law, Regulation and Policy (Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2005)

Goode, Principles of Corporate Insolvency Law (£rd Edition, Thompson Sweet & Maxwell, 2005)

Keay & Walton Insolvency Law: Corporate & Personal (2^nd Edition, 2008)

Sealy & Milmann Annotated Guide to the Insolvency Legislation (Sweet & Maxwell, 2008)

Mokal Corporate Insolvency Law: Theory and Application ( Oxford University Press, 2005)

Bandari & Weiss (Ed) Corporate Bankruptcy: Economic and Legal Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Niemi-Kiesilainen, Ramsey & Whitford Consumer Bankruptcy in Global Perspective (Hart Publishing, 2003)

Jackson The Logic and Limits of Bankruptcy Law (Harvard University Press, 1986)

Gross, Failure and Forgiveness: Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System (Yale University Press, 1997)

Sullivan, Warren & Westbrook As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in (New York: Oxford University Press)

Lester Victorian Insolvency: Bankruptcy, Imprisonment for Debt and Company Winding – up in Nineteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)