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2015

Selected Works

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Bankruptcy Law

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Bankruptcy Or Bailouts?, Kenneth Ayotte, David Skeel Jun 2015

Bankruptcy Or Bailouts?, Kenneth Ayotte, David Skeel

Kenneth Ayotte

The usual reaction if one mentions bankruptcy as a mechanism for addressing a financial institution’s default is incredulity. Those who favor the rescue of troubled financial institutions, and even those who prefer that their assets be promptly sold to a healthier institution, treat bankruptcy as anathema. Everyone seems to agree that nothing good can come from bankruptcy. Indeed, the Chapter 11 filing by Lehman Brothers has been singled out by many the primary cause of the severe economic and financial contraction that followed, and proof that bankruptcy is disorderly and ineffective. As a result, ad-hoc rescue lending to avoid bankruptcy …


Liquidity, Systemic Risk, And The Bankruptcy Treatment Of Financial Contracts, Riz Mokal Dec 2014

Liquidity, Systemic Risk, And The Bankruptcy Treatment Of Financial Contracts, Riz Mokal

Riz Mokal

Parties to repos, and to swaps and other derivatives are accorded privileged treatment under the bankruptcy laws of several dozen countries. Several key international “best practice” standards urge legislators in other jurisdictions to provide likewise. The beneficiaries of these privileges are solvent counterparties enabled, unimpeded by bankruptcy moratoria, to implement close-out netting arrangements and to dispose of collateral. The purported rationale is mitigation of systemic risk.
Taking a broad international perspective, this Article explores the “domino” contagion view of distress that motivates the privileges. This view derives from the outdated “microprudential” understanding of systemic risk, and is theoretically flawed and …