Municipal Bankruptcy Law: A Solution Which Should Not Become a Problem

Municipal bankruptcies have received little attention in legal scholarship outside the USA. This is a rather surprising circumstance given the multitude of (large) cases in this area, the magnitude of their consequences, and the lack of international guidelines to resolve them. Cases (‘Rome’ and ‘Detroit’) and laws (Italian and American) discussed in this article prove that different strategies are adopted to deal with local entities in crisis. Procedural (i.e. statutory-based) approaches may prevail over discretionary (i.e. politically-informed) ones; both may affect primarily the interests of creditors or those of the municipality, its residents, and taxpayers. This article is based on the assumption that municipal bankruptcy law should facilitate the reorganization of the distressed entity, since liquidation is hardly an option. The law should also adhere as much as possible to the principles that inform general corporate bankruptcy practice. This article demonstrates the need to clarify the notion of municipality, and to adopt a procedural, reorganization-oriented approach whenever a municipality is no longer able to repay its debts. Bankruptcy practice for municipalities is in urgent need of reform. This paper aims at providing some guidance to navigate these relatively uncharted waters

National Report for England and Wales

This report forms part of a global study undertaking an international comparison of the treatment of executory contracts in the context of insolvency. The introduction covers the history of insolvency law in England and Wales and a description of the procedures available to distressed companies. Section C describes the treatment of executory contracts under the law. It explores if and to what extent it has changed over time and whether their treatment is consistent with the pivotal principles of the common law in regards to contracts: party autonomy, freedom of contract and legal predictability. These principles also undergird the English corporate insolvency framework. Section D extends this consistency exercise to recent reforms of the treatment of these clauses. The final section concludes by observing that the proposed changes to the treatment of executory contracts and termination clauses does not go as far as to reverse the long-established principles that underpin the English corporate and insolvency framework

FTIR Spectroscopic Studies on Protein Migration in the Retina due to Light Exposure

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Insolvency statutory rules and contractual freedom: a study on the limits of corporate insolvency law in the Anglo/American tradition

Back in 1986 Thomas H. Jackson published a ground breaking work for insolvency literature: The Logic and Limits of Bankruptcy Law. Since then, much ink has been spilled in the investigation of the foundations of insolvency law. Many scholars have argued for the implementation of rescue- or debtor-oriented practices, in order to give a “second chance” to the honest but unfortunate debtor, or to save a distressed but viable business. Others have advocated for maximising the return to creditors to protect the rights bargained for by the parties in solvent times. In other words, the debate has focused on the “logic” of this area of law and it has been primarily either principle or purpose-oriented. This study, on the other hand, focuses on the other pillar of Jackson’s literary work: the “limits” of insolvency law. Insolvency remedies can be considered as a statutory endorsement of breaches of contracts. Insolvency law is not a synonym of rescue law. As a result, insolvency rules should apply only when contractual or general law remedies are no longer appropriate to deal with the ailing debtor. The main purpose of this research is therefore to investigate when, to what extent and if at all statutory insolvency rules should depart from the law of contract in market-driven jurisdictions. As a result, this study focuses on selected common law jurisdictions - the United States and the United Kingdom (rectius, England and Wales) - to investigate the circumstances that should justify the enforcement of insolvency (rectius, corporate distress) rules. This thesis complements problem and principle-informed theories to suggest a novel mechanism to determine the limit of insolvency law. To date, practitioners, scholars and judges have not fully acknowledged this issue and its implications for business practice. Legal systems fail to provide comprehensive guidance on the matter of the co-ordination between insolvency rules and the enforceability of the rights negotiated by the parties in their contracts. The aim of this thesis is to acknowledge, critically analyse, investigate 10 and suggest solutions to this issue and, in doing so, make an original and significant contribution to the field. This work will propose an innovative solution to determine when companies should rely on corporate distress remedies. Nevertheless, it does not claim that the proposed approach is the best or optimal one. It highlights the benefit that the proposed conceptualisation is expected to achieve over existing statutory and theoretical approaches and it identifies the factors that are most likely to promote (and to thwart) this new conceptualisation of the law of corporate distress

Pioneer settlement of the cold-water coral Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) on plastic

Larval settlement is a critical step for sessile benthic species such as corals, whose ability to thrive on diverse natural and anthropogenic substrates may lead to a competitive advantage in the colonization of new environments with respect to a narrow tolerance for a specific kind of substratum. Plastic debris, widespread in marine waters, provides a large, motile, and solid substratum supporting a highly diverse biological community. Here we present the first observation of a floating plastic bottle colonized by the deep-sea coral Desmophyllum dianthus. The density pattern and co-occurring species composition suggest a pioneer behavior of this coral species, whose peculiar morphologic plasticity response when interacting with the plastic substrate (i.e., low density polyethylene) has not been observed before. The tolerance of D. dianthus for such plastic substrate may affect ecological processes in deep water environments, disrupting interspecific substrate competition in the benthic community

Endosomal entry regulates Notch receptor activation in Drosophila melanogaster

Signaling through the transmembrane receptor Notch is widely used throughout animal development and is a major regulator of cell proliferation and differentiation. During canonical Notch signaling, internalization and recycling of Notch ligands controls signaling activity, but the involvement of endocytosis in activation of Notch itself is not well understood. To address this question, we systematically assessed Notch localization, processing, and signaling in a comprehensive set of Drosophila melanogaster mutants that block access of cargo to different endocytic compartments. We find that γ-secretase cleavage and signaling of endogenous Notch is reduced in mutants that impair entry into the early endosome but is enhanced in mutants that increase endosomal retention. In mutants that block endosomal entry, we also uncover an alternative, low-efficiency Notch trafficking route that can contribute to signaling. Our data show that endosomal access of the Notch receptor is critical to achieve physiological levels of signaling and further suggest that altered residence in distinct endocytic compartments could underlie pathologies involving aberrant Notch pathway activation

The Long-Term Experiment Platform for the Study of Agronomical and Environmental Effects of the Biochar: Methodological Framework

In this communication, a wide overview of historical Long-Term Experimental Platforms (LTEP) regarding changes in soil organic matter is presented for the purpose of networking, data sharing, experience sharing and the coordinated design of experiments in the area of Earth system science. This serves to introduce a specific platform of experiments regarding biochar application to soil (LTEP-BIOCHAR) and its use for agronomic and environmental purposes (e.g., carbon sequestration, soil erosion, soil biodiversity) in real conditions and over a significative timeframe for pedosphere dynamics. The methodological framework, including the goals, geographical scope and eligibility rules of such a new platform, is discussed. Currently, the LTEP-BIOCHAR is the first of its kind, a community-driven resource dedicated to biochar, and displays around 20 long-term experiments from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The selected field experiments take place under dynamically, meteorologically and biologically different conditions. The purposes of the platform are (1) listing the field experiments that are currently active, (2) uncovering methodological gaps in the current experiments and allowing specific metadata analysis, (3) suggesting the testing of new hypotheses without unnecessary duplications while establishing a minimum standard of analysis and methods to make experiments comparable, (4) creating a network of expert researchers working on the agronomical and environmental effects of biochar, (5) supporting the design of coordinated experiments and (6) promoting the platform at a wider international level