Insolvency Forum Shopping, Revisited
Hamburg Law Review 2017, p 38-59
21 Pages Posted: 26 Dec 2017
Date Written: December 2017
Abstract
The phenomenon of forum shopping in insolvency situations has long troubled policy makers and scholars alike. Forum shopping describes the situation where a debtor engages in regulatory arbitrage by modifying certain criteria that allow them to benefit from a different, more favourable insolvency law or jurisdiction. The European Insolvency Regulation, an instrument determining the competent courts and the applicable law in cross-border insolvency proceedings, has long sought to curb such efforts. A major reform adopted in 2015 has the specific objective of further restricting abusive versions of forum shopping, in particular by introducing a ‘suspension period’ for forum shopping activities carried out shortly before the debtor files for insolvency. This article demonstrates that these efforts fail to achieve a satisfactory response to forum shopping. Further, forum shopping with use of an English scheme of arrangement remains entirely outside the Regulation’s scope.
Keywords: forum shopping, regulatory arbitrage, insolvency, scheme of arrangement
JEL Classification: K22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation