A. MECHELE DICKERSON, University of Texas School of Law
Email: mdickerson@law.utexas.edu

This Article highlights the increased presence and influence of managers who are hired as a result of creditor demands - that is, privatized trustees. These creditor-controlled private trustee increasingly are performing duties and holding roles traditionally associated with a public, statutorily authorized trustee. This Article considers how ethical and fiduciary duties should be constructed and then imposed on the people who control firms in bankruptcy. The Article ultimately concludes that privatized trustees should have the same ethical obligations and duties in bankruptcy cases as the duties the Bankruptcy Code imposes on public, statutorily authorized trustees.

LOOK CHAN HO, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Email: lookchan.ho@googlemail.com

In explaining the concept of centre of main interests (COMI) within the UK Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (CBIR), the Englush court in Re Stanford International Bank over-emphasised third-party ascertainability due to an apparent lack of appreciation of the different functions performed by the COMI concept under the CBIR and the EC Insolvency Regulation.

In cases of fraud, the court’s approach to the COMI presumption risks the court concreting the fraudsters’ house of cards.

The Stanford decision also unnecessarily jars with case-law under Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

RAYMOND PASILIAO, University of the Philippines
Email: hirohonma@yahoo.com

The global debt crisis continues despite a number of efforts over the years to resolve it, and the purpose of this article is to assist in the campaign for debt relief by using international human rights law as basis for granting debt relief to debtor countries.

The article begins with a brief account of international customs involving debt cancellation or ‘write-offs’ and examines whether such customs have evolved into general practice. It will then catalogue a number of international conventions pertaining to human rights. It continues by highlighting the adverse effects of the debt burden on the human rights of the people of debtor countries. Finally, the article will conclude that international human rights law presents a compelling argument for canceling sovereign debt.

The article will not attempt to provide a precise mathematical equation for solving the debt crisis. Rather, it hopes to supply debtor and creditor nations with a human rights law perspective to arrive at consensual formulas for erasing, or at least reducing, the debt burden.

STEPHEN J. LUBBEN, Seton Hall University - School of Law
Email: lubbenst@shu.edu

The "safe harbors" excuse derivatives from much of the normal operation of the Bankruptcy Code. This exception to the normal rules is justified by fears that involvement of derivatives in the bankruptcy process will increase systemic risk. But as I and others have argued, the safe harbors themselves are likely to increase systemic risk by encouraging a "run on the bank." As Congress considers a variety of responses to the financial crisis, I argue that it is time to repeal the safe harbors. I do not advocate pulling out sections of the Bankruptcy Code and leaving the Code otherwise the same. Derivative contracts are somewhat unique. The volatility, interconnectedness and sheer magnitude of the sums of money involved make financial firms unique. As part of the repeal that I suggest, the Code would have to adapt to these realities. But the safe harbors should be repealed.