A by-product of globalisation is an increasing trend towards larger, more complex, multinational empires. Even smaller businesses today have many international facets to them. Invariably, some of these become casualties of the markets and have cross-border insolvency implications – look at Asia Pulp & Paper, Enron, Parmalat, United Airlines and WorldCom. Such cases are on the rise in numbers and size.
The diversity of legal systems and customs – while contributing to a vastly more interesting international neighbourhood – compounds commercial risks and complicates coordinated business recovery and restructuring efforts, where time is often of the essence. To facilitate the handling of such cases, the US, following a shortlist of eight other countries, has adopted the model law on cross-border insolvency developed by the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law.
