Ms Sarah Paterson

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Accounting and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course will be relevant to the following LLM specialisms: Corporate and/or Commercial Law.

This course is capped at 30 students. Students must apply through Graduate Course Choice on LSE for You.

It is recommended that students have completed Insolvency Law:  Principles, Rescue and Reconstruction Processes (LL4AJ), although this is not essential.

This course focuses on registered companies and is concerned with the principles and policies underlying the realisation and distribution of assets in an insolvency. The impact of these procedures and approaches on third parties such as corporate groups, secured and unsecured creditors, directors and employees, is also considered. Topics include: setting aside transactions; the Pari Passu principle and the distributional order of priority in insolvency; secured creditors and security devices; the problem of corporate groups; company directors in troubled times; employees in distress; and  EC and international recognition of insolvency proceedings.

20 hours of seminars in the LT. 2 hours of seminars in the ST.

A variable format: some lecture-discussions, some student-paper-led discussions and some debates. There will be a reading week in week 6.

One 1,500 word essay.

A full Reading List will be distributed during the course. The recommended text is V. Finch, Corporate Insolvency Law: Perspectives and Principles (Cambridge University Press, 2009) (2nd edition).

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours, reading time: 15 minutes) in the summer exam period.