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Bankruptcy Law

Duke Law

Public finance

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Derivatives And Collateral: Balancing Remedies And Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2015

Derivatives And Collateral: Balancing Remedies And Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

U.S. bankruptcy law grants special rights and immunities to creditors in derivatives transactions, including virtually unlimited enforcement rights. This Article examines whether exempting those transactions from bankruptcy’s automatic stay, including the stay of foreclosure actions against collateral, is necessary or appropriate in order to minimize systemic risk.


Rollover Risk: Ideating A U.S. Debt Default, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2014

Rollover Risk: Ideating A U.S. Debt Default, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how a U.S. debt default might occur, how it could be avoided, its potential consequences if not avoided, and how those consequences could be mitigated. To that end, the article differentiates defaults caused by insolvency from defaults caused by illiquidity. The latter, which are potentiated by rollover risk (the risk that the government will be temporarily unable to borrow sufficient funds to repay its maturing debt), are not only plausible but have occurred in the past. Moreover, the ongoing controversy over the federal debt ceiling and the rise of the shadow-banking system make these types of defaults …