Cross-Border Bank Insolvency

This timely book analyzes and discuss the various issues associated with cross-border bank insolvency following the financial crisis. Though financial markets and institutions have become international in recent years, regulation remains constrained by the domain of domestic jurisdictions. This dichotomy poses challenges for regulators and policy makers. If at the national level, bank crisis management is complex (with the involvement of several authorities and the interests of many stakeholders), this complexity is far greater in the case of cross-border bank crisis management, both at the EU level and at the international level.

Insolvency procedures are typically nationally based, entity-centric and sector specific. The demise of national frontiers in today's global financial markets shows the limitations and inadequacies of these principles to deal with financial conglomerates, complex financial groups and international holding structures. These inadequacies are particularly evident in the case of cross-border bank insolvency. They are also manifested in the host-home country divide and in the treatment of systemic risk and systemically significant financial institutions. Institutions may claim to be global when they are alive (as in the case of Lehman Brothers); they become national when they are dead.

Quite often, financial law specialists lack in-depth expertise on insolvency law and insolvency law specialists lack in-depth expertise on financial law. This book bridges these two areas of law by bringing together distinguished insolvency and banking law experts to provide a unique analysis of the special issues associated with cross-border bank insolvency and an inter-jurisdictional approach combining national, European and international dimensions.

The Editor draws on her experience gained during participation in the Basel Working Group to provide a valuable reference for banking and insolvency practitioners, scholars, regulators and the judiciary.