The use and abuse of the Deed of Arrangement

James Edelman, Justice of the High Court of Australia, gave the second lecture in the special series The common law and finance: perspectives from the bench, on January 14.

Justice Edelman’s lecture was entitled “The use and abuse of the Deed of Arrangement”. It offered a scholarly treatment of the evolution of corporate insolvency laws across three jurisdictions (the US, the UK and Australia), identifying a common liberalising trend (particularly in relation to the application of restructuring and rescue oriented procedures) with important implications for corporate governance rules. The lecture complemented the first in the series, given by Geoffrey Ma (Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal). That lecture identified overarching themes in the application of the common law to financial markets which could be developed and tested in individual subject settings, including corporate insolvency. Both lectures will be published later in 2019 in a special journal issue dedicated to the series. 

The next lecture in the series will be given by Michael Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne (Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom) on 7 February in the Law Faculty at 6pm. It is entitled “The Lehman insolvency and beyond”.