As a central provision of the substantive insolvency law, 103 of the InsO [Insolvency Statute] is of great practical importance. When an insolvency proceeding is opened, the insolvency administrator is often required to decide on the type of settlement for a number of mutual "provisional" contracts, meaning contracts not completely fulfilled by any party. This applies in particular for company insolvencies. In the past, the insolvency administrator's right of election was already a common subject matter of scholarly works. However, only the legal position within the insolvency proceeding stood at the center of these investigations. Therefore, the goal of the present work is the investigation of the legal position existing between the parties to the contract after the insolvency proceeding is cancelled either after complete final distribution or after an insolvency plan comes into effect. The starting point is the fundamentally tense relationship between the contractual law of obligations and substantive insolvency law, and the associated question regarding the effects of the opening of the proceeding on the claims for fulfillment that are still open. The author presents the problems that arise with the application of the latest BGH [German Federal Supreme Court] judicature, according to which the opening of the proceeding affects only the "enforceability" of the claims for fulfillment, and offers solution recommendations. Particularly relevant in practice are the difficulties that result from the renunciation of the "forfeiture theory" when the insolvency reorganization plans go into effect.

The book deals with the problems generated by those cases of insolvency (either of an individual or of a company) where the presence of contacts with more than one system of law brings into operation the principles and methods of private international law (also known as conflict of laws). Part I of the book is mainly devoted to an examination of the body of rules and practice that has evolved in England during the course of the past two-and-a-half centuries, and surveys the current state of the law derived from a blend of statutory and case authorities. Contrasting approaches under a selection of foreign systems - principally Australia, Canada, France and the USA - are examined by way of comparison. There are up to date accounts of the circumstances under which insolvency proceedings can be opened in respect of debtors which are not primarily based in England, and of the grounds on which English courts will recognise foreign insolvency proceedings and give assistance to the foreign representative of the debtor's estate.;Part II of the book explores the progress towards the creation of international arrangements to co-ordinate and rationalise the conduct of insolvency proceedings which have cross-border features, particularly where the debtor is capable of being subjected to concurrent proceedings in two or more jurisdictions. Central to the developments described in detail in this Part are the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings, in force throughout the UK since May 2002, and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency, which is due for enactment in the UK.

Contracting with Companies surveys the main rules of company law governing the making of contracts with companies. It adopts an economic perspective, examining these rules in terms of the risks they apportion between companies and parties contracting with them. It reviews the use that has been made of economics in the analysis of company law and considers what guidance this can provide in analyzing corporate contracting. The book then examines the relevant law and the issues raised by this law, covering the role of corporate constitutions as the source of the authority of corporate agents, the mechanisms of corporate activity and decision-making, the identification of corporate contracting parties, pre-incorporation contracts and other contracts with non-existent companies, the contractual power of a company's board, the protection of parties dealing with subordinate corporate agents and the regulation of contracts in which a director has a conflict of interest.

""They're still trying to hide the weenie," thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company's creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. "Don't assume that there is a smoking gun."
Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode...
Power Failure" is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be "The World's Leading Company," and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America.
Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, "Power Failure" shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company's meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay's and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron's money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush's election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron's praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company's leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron's fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums.
Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider's perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron's "outside face," who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron's high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron's mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron's international division, who was Skilling's sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron's deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron's finance department into a "profit center," creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron's "profits," while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets
An unprecedented chronicle of Enron's shocking collapse, "Power Failure" should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades - "Barbarians at the Gate" and "Liar's Poker" - as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

"From the Hardcover edition."

This book examines powers and remedies available to a liquidator or administrator that render 'vulnerable' the company's prior contractual commitments or proprietary dispositions so as to enhance the asset pool available to creditors. In the process,the book does two things. First, it offers comprehensive accounts of the relevant causes of action: undervalue transactions, preferences, late floating charges, unregistered charges, transactions defrauding creditors, gratuitous corporate transactions and post-petition dispositions in liquidation. Secondly, it seeks to raise issues about the context and purpose of these causes of action, many of which have not yet been fully explored in the case law or academic literature. These are considered through a discussion of their relationship to the pari passu principle; a restitutionary analysis of the remedial provisions; and issues arising specifically in cross-border and international insolvency proceedings. The book is thus a source of reference both for insolvency litigators and for transactional lawyers seeking advice on potential vulnerability. The thematic approach and rigorous analysis will also make it of interest to an academic readership.

In recent years, a number of company bankruptcies in Europe - particularly in the Netherlands - have exposed serious gaps in the securing by law of reparations due to employees. As matters stand, employees - who were dependent upon the bankruptcy not only for their income but also for their employment and social security - have little to expect in terms of payment of arrears of pay, protection against dismissal, continued employment in the event of a business transfer, or participation rights. This work opens this far-reaching and hugely important issue by comparing employee rights in bankruptcy among four major European trading partners - the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany. It is to be hoped that, armed with the substantive and procedural details that are fully laid out in these pages, company lawyers and bankruptcy lawyers throughout Europe will be enabled to bring the rights of employees in bankruptcy into a light at least as clear as that focused on other creditors. The contributors examine not only the individual fairness issue - the unequal position of the employee as weaker party in the labour market - but also the central policy issue: does an improvement of the position of employees in a bankruptcy give rise to less willingness on the part of lenders to keep the flow of money open, or greater control by lenders over the way in which borrowers run their businesses with, as a result, slower economic growth and hence a lower level of employment? The study was commissioned by the Stichting Ondersteuningsfonds Oud-Werknemers DAF (Benevolent Fund Foundation for Former DAF Employees) in Eindhoven and carried out by researchers of the Faculty of Law of theKatholieke Universitcit Brabant in Tilburg. Its provisional findings, presented at the conference on "Employee Rights in Bankruptcy" held in Tilburg on 8 December 1999, were considered and discussed from a variety of viewpoints by representatives of such relevant parties as trade unions and employers' organizations, receivers in bankruptcy, banks, public authorities, politicians and legal experts. The end result is this report, which is sure to contribute to a better understanding of the difficult issue of employee rights in bankruptcy and to stimulate discussion of remedies that are indispensable to the maintenance of a responsible society.

A careful analysis of the fundamentals of bankruptcy law.

In today's vulnerable and volatile business climate, corporate bankruptcy and Chapter 11 reorganization is a common occurrence at U.S. corporations of all sizes, in all sectors. As a result, the market for distressed firms' debt and equity securities continues to capture the interest and imagination of the investment community. "Bankruptcy & Distressed Restructurings: Analytical Issues and Investment Opportunities" compiles the insights of more than 30 experts from both the practitioner and academic communities on a multitude of subjects including bankruptcy and liquidation costs, the determinants of successful Chapter 11 proceedings, competitor behavior related to distress, and investment opportunities in distressed and defaulted securities--must reading for anyone involved in corporate finance, financial markets, economics, or law.

An exploration of the strange world of bankruptcy -- the types of individuals and companies that become bankrupts, and the people who make their living from them, including auctioneers, lawyers, accountants, and collection men. This book takes you behind the scenes to where the deals are made, showing the gimmicks used and the fees collected. Find out the danger signals that give advance notice of a bankruptcy in the making, and learn how to cut through public relations semantics to determine whether a company really is in distress.

Americans now depend more heavily upon credit than any other society on Earth, or any other time in history. Borrowing has become a way of life for millions of families, and it is hard to imagine a time when charge accounts did not exist. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to assume that, because a wallet filled with plastic instead of cash is a relatively new phenomenon, Americans have not been borrowers and lenders since the colonization of the New World. Author Peter J. Coleman proves otherwise. In one Form or another -- notes of hand, book credit, commercial paper, mortgages, land contracts -- settlers borrowed to pay their passage from Europe, to buy and clear land, to build and operate mills, to purchase slaves, and to gamble and drink. Debtors' prison awaited those who could not pay their debts, and a pauper's grave received the unfortunate who lacked the private means to feed and clothe himself in prison. While the debtors' prisons described in this book no longer exist, the author maintains that our credit-oriented society has yet to devise cheap, efficient, equitable, and humane methods of enforcing contracts for debt.

The inside account of how Frank Lorenzo took over a sputtering Airlines and flew it into the ground. With access to the major players -- the guarded Lorenzo and his inner circle, former Eastern Airlines president Frank Borman, Peter Ueberroth, and union boss Charlie Bryan -- author Aaron Bernstein explains how Lorenzo brought a corporate raider's mentality to running a business, and how its failure marked a watershed in the 1980s "Age of Greed".

Foreword by Rt. Hon Mary Arden,D.B.E. The purpose of this new work is to provide an in-depth analysis of circumstances giving rise to the disqualification and personal liability of directors of insolvent companies. By way of introduction, the book commences by considering the legal indentification of a company director and the general corporate responsibilities and duties expected from a director of an insolvent company. Following the introduction, the first part of the work is devoted to an examination of the statutory provisions which may potentially render a director to be made personally liable to contribute to the debts and liabilities of an insolvent company. Accordingly, Part I of this book considers the law governing misfeasance proceedings, fraudulent trading, wrongful trading, phoenix companies and the misuse of corporate names under section 349(4) of the Companies Act 1985. Part II of the book involves an examination of the disqualification process under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. The ability and powers of the courts to impose disqualification orders have generated an abundance of case law. Part II commences with a general analysis of the disqualification process before moving on to specifically concentrate its attention on section 6 of the Act, namely the disqualification of directors for unfit conduct. The final chapter of the work involves an analysis of the procedural aspects of the disqualification process. Table of Contents Part I - Personal Liability of Company Directors Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Misfeasance Proceedings Chapter 3 - Fraudulent Trading Chapter 4 - Wrongful Trading Chapter 5 - The Phoenix Syndrome Chapter 6 - Section 349(4) of the Companies Act 1985 Part II - Disqualification of Company Directors Chapter 7 - The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 Chapter 8 - Disqualification for Unfit Conduct in the Management of an Insolvent Company (section 6, CDDA 1986) Chapter 9 - Procedural and Evidential Matters Pertinent to the CDDA 1986