Dr. Eugenio Vaccari organised this edition of the symposium.
Background slide at the 5th Insolvency Symposium
On 25-27 April 2024, Royal Holloway, University of London hosted the 5th International and Comparative Law Insolvency Symposium.
This was the fifth in a series of roughly biennial symposia that started at Chicago-Kent College of Law in 2017. Previous events have been held in Chicago (twice), Miami and virtually during the pandemic in Phoenix.
Since their establishment, one of the aims of the symposia has been to bring together both young and established academics and practitioners, and to provide an innovative and open platform to address current international/cross-border developments and trends in the insolvency practice.
This is the first time the symposium was held outside the USA. Being able to host the symposium at RHUL proves the success of this initiative, as it facilitated the collaboration between practitioners and scholars across the globe. In fact, Dr Eugenio Vaccari (the symposium’s organizer) and Prof Laura Coordes (Arizona State University) started working on a joint research on local entities in financial distress soon after meeting in Chicago in 2017. Their work, now also supported by Professors Yseult Marique (University of Essex), Geo Quinot (Stellenbosh University), Emanuele Padovani (University of Bologna) and Dr André Lino (University of Essex), has evolved into the Research Network on Public Authorities and Financial Distress (RPAFD).
The Department of Law and Criminology, and Royal Holloway, University of London are proud of having been able to support this research network with some grants from the Social Science Impact Accelerator and the PIRP Small Impact Grants, which will be used towards the creation of a website, YouTube videos and other external engagement initiatives organised by the network.
The symposium featured the participation of more than 100 delegates and speakers over the course of 3 days. The Department of Law and Criminology and the Rights and Freedoms cluster took an active role in ensuring the success of this event. Dr Marton Ribary and Mr Kenneth Ghartey presented papers at the symposium, while Prof Jill Marshall and Dr Leonardo VP de Oliveira chaired panels at the symposium.
Highlights of the event included: (1) the opening remarks from Prof Ravinder Barn (Head of Department); (2) the virtual lecture from Prof Emer Bob Wessels on Rembrandt’s debt issues; and (3) a lecture from Mr Justice Sir Antony Zacaroli on the role of creditors’ majority voting in English restructuring and insolvency procedures. The full programme, the abstracts and the PPT presentations shown during the event are available here.
