Articles by author
Will COVID change legal systems permanently?
This Spotlight article discusses the long-term impact of COVID on world legal systems, in particular whether COVID will crystallise legal upheavals around the world and whether it will cast a grim shadow over the law or a redeeming glow. I am mainly concerned with financial, corporate and commercial law. My enquiry relates to the post-COVID world, not emergency legislation during COVID. I deal with actual changes to the law, not how it is practised. Thus, I do not aim to cover the documentation of deals, or shifts in market practice, or the future of remote working, or the availability and cost of credit. My focus is on large-scale permanent changes to legal systems themselves, which in turn excludes emergency legislation.
1 APR 2021Are corporate lawyers interested in governing law?
In this article Philip Wood CBE KC (Hon) considers whether corporate lawyers are less interested in the question of what law to choose to govern their transactions than financial lawyers.
31 MAY 2024Custodianship: why do EU civil code states not trust the trust?
This article deals with the custodianship of securities in civil code states in the EU – all of them except Ireland and Cyprus. Common law jurisdictions all recognise universal trusts over all assets present and future but most civil code states do not. Instead they either have limited special trusts and, if not, various other devices. The question is whether these are adequate to safeguard client assets against the creditors of the custodian. This article will be followed later by one or more articles by lawyers in selected EU jurisdictions specifically discussing their solutions to the problem.
1 OCT 2021Russia and Ukraine: the end of Article VIII 2b?
Bad wars expose the weaknesses in the international framework of law. The attack by Russia on Ukraine is no exception to this proposition in an area of law often considered to be obscure but of very significant consequences. This is Article VIII 2b of the IMF agreement which allows a member’s exchange controls unilaterally to override its contracts in certain cases. This Article is considered a blot on the otherwise pure parchment of the IMF Agreement and should be removed.
1 MAY 2022What really happened in legal history
Why is it that the three major Western European legal philosophies, which inspired over 85% of the world’s jurisdictions, are so different in their outcome in business law?
1 DEC 2022
