Blog Archive

The Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI), which started in 2016, is an institute based in Singapore. It initiates, conducts and facilitates research and produces authoritative texts with a view to providing practical guidance in the field of Asian legal development and promoting the convergence of Asian business laws. Since last year I am involved in their work related to restructuring… Read More »2018-06-doc4 Privacy protection in Asia and the EU

For IEEI in Athens last week, I gave 2 presentations. One on Business rescue in Europe and a short overview of the legislative developments re the Recalibration of Dutch Bankruptcy Act. See some notes below. Introduction The Dutch Bankruptcy Act dates from 1896. It contains 3 proceedings: bankruptcy liquidation (faillissement), suspension of payments (surseance van betaling) and, since 1998, debt… Read More »2018-05-doc2 Two lectures for IEEI in Athens

The power of trends in international insolvency law Bob Wessels, Professor emeritus of International Insolvency Law, University of Leiden, The Netherlands [could not attach this comment to my blogs 2018-03-doc2 and 2018-03-doc3, so here it finally is] 1 The Oi Brasil case has been, without doubt, one of the most complex international insolvency cases of the last two years, involving… Read More »2018-03-doc3bis No attachment, just pasted: comment on NYC SDNY case Oi Brasil Coop – Aurelius

Corporate groups: bringing insolvency law and corporate law together Below the text of an editorial, to appear in the first issue of 2018 of European Company Law (a Kluwer Law International journal). Corporate groups are an ensemble of companies that act in concert. From an economic perspective, they represent one enterprise and an efficient administration of insolvency proceedings related to… Read More »2018-03-doc1 Corporate law – insolvency law

On December 4, 2017, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York had to decide about a petition to recognise Dutch insolvency proceedings launched by an affiliate of Brazilian telecoms company Oi. The petition was brought by the insolvency trustee of Oi Brasil Holdings Coöperatief U.A. (Coop), a Netherlands incorporated subsidiary of a Brazilian parent company Oi… Read More »2018-02-doc5 Bankr. S.D.N.Y. of December 7, 2017, on the Dutch Oi Brasil Cooperatief UA

Since the end of January 2018 the Law Library of the Leiden Law School holds one of the largest collections on insolvency (bankruptcy) law in Europe. A large portion of it contains the private library that I have been building up in over thirty years, since the early 1980s till 2016. From 2007 to 2014 I was a professor of… Read More »2018-01-12 Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection

The ‘rule in Gibbs’ is not well known on the European continent. In the English insolvency world, however, it’s a rule that can not be overlooked, and receives severe criticism. It goes back to over a century, but recently has kept laywyers in several parts of the world busy. The rule of Gibbs refers to the case of Gibbs &… Read More »2018-01-doc10 The rule in Gibbs