LAWS7744 · Law

Anatomy of a Cross-Border Insolvency

Boston College Law School

The purpose of this course will be to take the students through a series of cross-border cases of varying types from beginning to end. The course will illustrate the difficult legal, political, and practical problems faced by practitioners in these cases. As a result of that journey through the case(s), the students will be taught concepts of extraterritoriality (and its limits); jurisdiction over foreign persons and entities (and its limits);the doctrine of forum non conveniens in the international context; and comity (and its limits).The students will learn the unique challenges and critical issues in filing a U.S. chapter 11 case for a foreign entity. The students will also learn the mechanics of chapter 15 (and its international counterparts) and its critical substantive and procedural components, all of which come into play when seeking recognition of insolvency proceedings in another country. Through the use of case studies, the students will be exposed to how these concepts and issues arise andare dealt with in an actual case, rather than being exposed only to theoretical problems. Using in-class experiential learning opportunities, the students will be placed in the position of the various parties and their counsel, with the attendant need to argue relevant positions and solve the problems it presented. At the end of this course, students should acquire a detailed understanding of how a cross-border case works procedurally and substantively, through various structures; a working knowledge of chapter 15 and cross-border protocols; a thorough understanding of principles of comity, extraterritoriality, personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens as they relate to cross-border insolvency cases; and an understanding of how such cases can handle mass tort, environmental, and other mass-claim contexts.