THE NOTION OF VIABILITY IN CORPORATE DEBT RESTRUCTURING LAW: FROM THE US AND UK TO THE EU

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is the notion of viability in corporate debt restructuring law. While the European Directive on restructuring and insolvency has used the notion of viability extensively, the latter remains largely unexplored in both the Directive and European literature. Moreover, viability has not so far been clearly employed as a perspective of analysis by English corporate debt restructuring legal scholarship, while in the US, where the notion has received more attention, there has nevertheless not yet been any holistic and systematic examination of the Chapter 11 provisions through the prism of viability. It is this lack of (comprehensive) analysis of corporate debt restructuring law from the perspective of a notion of economic nature, - viability -, that motivates this thesis. This notion is of pivotal importance for corporate debt restructuring law given that it determines which debtors are worth being rescued and which not. Against this background, the thesis conducts an in-depth comparative examination of established restructuring frameworks (US, UK) in order to uncover and critically assess, - from an economic analysis of law standpoint -, the way in which viability has been embedded in their provisions. By using the results of this examination, the thesis puts forward suggestions for both the two established frameworks (when shortcomings are identified) as well as for the European Directive, with regard to the optimal way of reflecting viability on their provisions. This way the thesis becomes, what is believed to be, the first holistic and comprehensive analysis of corporate debt restructuring law through the prism of viability, hence setting a new paradigm of analysis in this area of law.

Date of Award	1 Jun 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Michael Schillig (Supervisor)