The ultimate goal of competition law is to promote competition and, in most jurisdictions, to enhance consumer welfare. Competition policy may be set aside due to special and exceptional circumstances, such as a financial crisis that threatens the stability of an economy. It is therefore important to have a clear understanding of competition law and the exceptions to it. The key issue that this book addresses is whether a financial crisis can justify the adoption of a more lenient approach to established legal standards as a result of the risks of the systemic crisis to the entire market. It provides an analysis of exceptions to competition law and policy, particularly in the context of a financial crisis, explores the rationale of competition law in the light of conflicting interests, and serves as a valuable practical guide for policy makers as well as practitioners in the field.

The new third edition of Debt Restructuring offers detailed legal analysis of international corporate, banking, and sovereign debt restructuring, from the perspective of creditors and debtors. It provides practical guidance to help practitioners, policy-makers, and academics in the UK and US to understand current developments in debt restructuring, and provides solutions for creditors holding distressed debt and debtor options in a distressed scenario. The Corporate Debt section includes significant changes to highlight the impact of COVID-19 on restructurings, including: potential grounds for investors/lenders to modify or terminate commitments to fund or support restructurings by invoking material adverse effect or force majeure clauses; unprecedented relief granted by insolvency courts to aid ailing retailers; and challenges facing insolvency courts in making necessary confirmation findings regarding the feasibility of reorganization plans due to market instability. This section also includes the recent adoption of the Part 26A Restructuring Plans and the EU Restructuring Directive. Amendments to the Bank Resolution section reflect decisions by the Single Resolution Board, and national authority resolution decisions notified to the European Banking Authority. A new sub-section on domestic bank insolvency and liquidation covers the developments under the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive, and a new chapter on insolvency law relating to Insurance Firms addresses the international debate on a special resolution regime for insurance firms. Other updates include the 2017 code of practice, the 'third country' branch model after Brexit, non-equivalence regarding depositor protection arrangements, and the Resolvability Assessment Framework. In the Sovereign Debt section, there is detailed coverage of US and UK developments, examining the increased role of sanctions and the possibility of piercing the corporate veil in SoEs (Chrystallex), as well as the increased push for domestic laws to be used to curtail litigation. It also covers developments in re-designation and the emergence of the 'pac-man technique' in the context of collective action clauses, as a result of the recent restructurings of Argentina and Ecuador. The impact of COVID-19 on the adoption of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and the Common Framework are also analysed.

This is the first book to provide a complete comparative analysis of expedited corporate debt restructuring alternatives in the European Union. The work considers the different options available to a company facing a distress scenario and focuses on the options that provide expedited solutions to these issues. The techniques considered in full include: (1) out-of-court reorganization or (non-insolvency process-related) private workouts; (2) pre-packaged reorganization plans; and, (3) pre-arranged or pre-negotiated reorganization plans. The merits and suitability of each technique are considered and case studies are used to illustrate these points in each chapter. A considerable feature of the work is the jurisdiction analysis which allows the reader to compare the law and practice related to each method in each of the EU member states. Each country chapter sets out the relevant legal framework, illustrates its practical application and highlights potential problems through the use of case studies. The aim of the book is to work as a toolkit, a first point of reference for anyone dealing with companies in distress in the EU. In addition to the jurisdictional analysis, the thematic chapter provide an introduction to the techniques discussed and cover common issues for all EU jurisdictions.