Towards a Framework for the Regulation of Corporate Groups Insolvencies

Corporate groups are a well-known phenomenon of corporate law that has been subject to extensive academic scrutiny, last but not least in this journal. The corporate personality is strangely at odds with both the everyday-life and the economic perception of big national and international concerns like General Motors, Volkswagen or Siemens as one business enterprise. Things become even more complicated in insolvency proceedings, in particular in a cross-border context. The separate legal personalities of the group companies seem to stand in the way of lean proceedings where one administrator at one forum deals with one common pool of assets. This article shows however that also within the quot;separation priciplequot;, there are several ways forward to a more efficient management of group insolvencies