With deep sorrow I am reporting about the death, on 15 March 2019, of my dear colleague Gabriel Moss QC. Gabriel has had a remarkable career as a practitioner, with a clever and unrivalled grasp on the practical as well as the academic dimensions of especially international insolvency law. We met in the early 2000s both being speakers at several… Read More »2019-03-doc7 Passing away of Gabriel Moss QC
Since 2016, Brazilian telecom group Oi’s restructuring has led to several court proceedings in the Netherlands. The District Court in Amsterdam decided one issue in March 2018, in a conflict between Cayman Islands-incorporated Capricon Capital (Capricorn) and two Dutch financial vehicles, Portugal Telecom International Finance (PTIF) and Oi Brasil Holdings Co-operative (Finco) – both part of the Oi group and… Read More »2019-03-doc2 No-action clause in Brazil Oi case
A foundation, carrying my name (‘Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection’) is a Dutch incorporated legal person. It was founded in August 2016, at my initiative, a few years after my retirement for the Leiden University. The Foundation has acquired the larger part of my private collection of books and other media in the field of national and international insolvency… Read More »2019-03-doc1 PhD Workshop European/International insolvency law
Since 1990, the most classic publication to understand English corporate insolvency law is the book of Roy Goode. In autumn of 2018 it has been published in its fifth edition, edited by Kristin van Zwieten. On the continent, she will be most known for the 2016 book with an extensive commentary on the EU Insolvency Regulation (Recast), edited together with… Read More »2019-02-doc8 Principles of Corporate Insolvency Law, 5th ed.
Insolvency crossing border is heavily debated. The EU has provided a legislative resonse in the Recast of the Insolvency Regulation. UNCITRAL knows close to 50 countries have adopted the Model Law, and UNCITRAL too is close to the finalisation of a separate Model Law on Group enterprise insolvency. Notwithstanding case law resulting from Yukos in the Netherlands, the legislature is… Read More »2019-02-doc4 Cross-border insolvency law in Argentina
In legal theory, the regulation of cross-border insolvency is dealt with from two different angles. Under the universalist approach, cross-border insolvencies are administered pursuant to a single global insolvency regime. All of the debtor’s assets are distributed by a single insolvency office holder, regardless where the assets or claimants are located. The ideal of universalism is one court, one law… Read More »2019-01-doc3 Modified universalism in European cross-border insolvency?
In her book The Future of Cross-Border Insolvency: Overcoming Biases and Closing Gaps, University of Nottingham’s professor of international commercial law Irit Mevorach explores theoretical and practical developments in the field of cross-border insolvency. She uses a wide scope including both commercial entities and financial institutions. She also employs a broad interdisciplinary perspective, including public international law, international (soft) law… Read More »2019-01-doc1 The Future of Cross-border Insolvency
With prof. Stephan Madaus, and assisted by Gert-Jan Boon, LL.M MSc, now a PhD in Leiden, we delivered in September 2017 the ELI Report on Business Rescue in Insolvency. See blog/2017-09-doc3-eli-business-rescue-report-published. As from the moment of the spark of the first ideas until now (closing our research files) we worked for 5,5 years. Including members of committees and boards within… Read More »2018-12-doc5 ELI project Business Rescue in Insolvency Law – Slowly closing the curtains
When I was a young law student in Amsterdam, in the early 70s of last century, ‘European Community Law’, as it was called then, was an optional course. The very far away subject was followed by some 10 students. It intrigued me because there seemed to be a new organisation to achieve a common economic market for the six Western-European… Read More »2018-11-doc11 Oxford Principles of European Union Law
In Autumn 2017, I started my research into the financial distress of Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt. More specifically I am interested in the cessio bonorum proceedings, which started in 1656. See blog/2017-11-05-rembrandt. The BBC intends to broadcast a 3 times 60 minutes programme and it was with great pleasure that I was interviewed yesterday by Tim Niel and his… Read More »2018-09-doc3 The ‘bankruptcy’ of Rembrandt – interview BBC