Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes and other instruments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Agendas and objectives
- 1 The roots of corporate insolvency law
- 2 Aims, objectives and benchmarks
- Part II The context of corporate insolvency law: financial and institutional
- Part III The quest for turnaround
- Part IV Gathering and distributing the assets
- Part V The impact of corporate insolvency
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Aims, objectives and benchmarks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes and other instruments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Agendas and objectives
- 1 The roots of corporate insolvency law
- 2 Aims, objectives and benchmarks
- Part II The context of corporate insolvency law: financial and institutional
- Part III The quest for turnaround
- Part IV Gathering and distributing the assets
- Part V The impact of corporate insolvency
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Openness concerning the aims and objectives of corporate insolvency law is necessary if evaluations of proposals, or even existing regimes, are to be made. Without such transparency it is possible only to describe legal states of affairs or to make prescriptions on the basis of unstated premises. As will be argued in this chapter, however, it may not be possible to set down in convincing fashion a single rationale or end for corporate insolvency law. A number of objectives can be identified and these may have to be traded off against each other. It is, nevertheless, feasible to view legal developments with these objectives in mind and to argue about trade-offs once the natures of these objectives have been stipulated.
This chapter will suggest an approach that allows and explains such trade-offs but it begins by reviewing a number of competing visions of the insolvency process that are to be found in the legal literature. A starting point in looking for the objectives of modern English corporate insolvency law is the statement of aims contained in the Cork Committee Report of 1982.
Cork on principles
The Cork Committee produced a set of ‘aims of a good modern insolvency law’. It is necessary, however, to draw from a number of areas of the Cork Report in order to produce a combined statement of objectives relevant to corporate insolvency.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Corporate Insolvency LawPerspectives and Principles, pp. 25 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002