The eighth joint UNCITRAL/INSOL/World Bank multinational judicial colloquium was held in Vancouver, Canada on 20-21 June 2009. Over 80 judges and government officials attended from some 40 states, representing a broad range of practical experience and perspectives, particularly with respect to cross-border insolvency, from diverse legal systems. The colloquium provided a widely-welcomed opportunity for judges to have contact with each other and to further their understanding of the various national approaches to cross-border insolvency cases. A number of judges attending had not attended previous colloquia.

Two data sets are used to study how country and firm characteristics affected firms' financial constraints and their likelihood of survival during the early phase of the recent global financial crisis in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a region that was especially hard hit. The first data source provides information on the reported severity of financial constraints for 360 firms from 23 countries in 2002, 2005, and 2008. By following the same firms over time, the study summarizes both the gradual easing of financial constraints from 2002 to 2005 and their tightening during the crisis. Key findings are that financial constraints during the crisis were less severe in countries with well-established foreign banks (entered prior to year 2000), and that changes in the severity of financial constraints were more pronounced for large firms than others during the crisis (although large firms continued to have less severe constraints on average). The second data source provides information on whether firms remained in operation in 2009 in six countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Controlling for other relevant characteristics...

This report takes stock of enterprise sector performance in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region and its key drivers: access to finance, infrastructure, and labor. It is the second of two complementary reports that examine selected trends emerging from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) data that are of immediate policy relevance to ECA countries. Both reports draw primarily on information from data collected prior to the crisis. This report also uses data on employment and access to finance collected during the crisis in a subset of ECA countries. The global financial crisis has had enormous consequences for firms' access to finance, the availability of qualified workers, and the ability of governments to provide (and of private sector to obtain) reliable infrastructure services. The extent and impact of these constraints is yet to be determined but their presence at a time of economic growth suggests they may re-emerge during the post-crisis economic recovery. The BEEPS captures information on a number of aspects of the business environment. This report highlights the elements of firm finance...

The purpose of this book is to provide a coherent overview of the insolvency systems found around the world. Its intended audience includes academics, judges, lawyers, and policymakers. Its focus is on businesses rather than natural persons. The authors hope to give the reader a sense of some of the principal approaches to managing the general default of a business debtor. The authors will discuss the nature of the costs and benefits arising from the various policy choices legislators have made. In the process, they will emphasize the close interrelationship among various elements of an insolvency regime so that these elements can be viewed as part of an overall system and not just as a series of policy decisions about particular rules, such as the method of initiation of an insolvency case or the balance struck in setting the boundaries of an avoidance power. The organization of the book reflects our view of insolvency laws as complete systems, including not only the 'insolvency' or 'bankruptcy' code of a jurisdiction but also closely related laws and the institutional framework in which those laws are applied. The book takes a systematic approach to a variety of topics related to credit and insolvency regulation. The functional analysis starts with the study of debt enforcement...