Pro-Commerce Outlooks : The Bane of English Corporate Insolvency Law

Akintola, Kayode (2021) Pro-Commerce Outlooks : The Bane of English Corporate Insolvency Law. Insolvency Intelligence, 34 (1). pp. 6-9. ISSN 0950-2645

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Abstract

This article cursorily examines strands of English corporate insolvency law that highlight an overarching pro-commerce approach in marshalling competing rights of stakeholders in the insolvency matrix as well as in resolving insolvency proceedings. In particular, it uses case law ( Belmont Park Investment Pty Ltd v BNY Corporate Trustee Services Ltd ) and legislation ( Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 ) as selected—and decidedly limited—paradigms of this approach. In so doing, this article suggests that while there is typically a wide benefit to this approach in commercial life, it also has the propensity to disrupt the insolvency polity by introducing elements of subjectivity and, pro tanto, uncertainty. Of more concern, however, is that the approach could also inhibit the "creative-destruction" role that insolvency proceedings ought to play in a well-functioning economy.