General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW6084 /JDOC6084 |
| Course name: | Cross-Border Insolvency Law |
| Programme offered under: | LLM Programme / JD Programme |
| Semester: | Second |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Credit point value: | 9 credits / 6 credits |
1.2 Course description
Corporate insolvency law is rapidly evolving. Apart from being a rigorous academic discipline, it is hugely significant in practice: corporate insolvency law has interacted with legal practice more than many other areas, with academics increasingly collaborating with practitioners. The course will explore Hong Kong and English corporate insolvency and restructuring law. It will adopt a comparative approach and also provide students with a basic framework of Chapter 11 (reorganization) and Chapter 15 (cross-border cases) of the US Bankruptcy Code.
Students will gain an understanding of the following theoretical and legal issues:
- What is the purpose of corporate insolvency law?
- How does the law handle the conflicts between distressed companies, creditors (banks, bondholders, etc.) and other stakeholders?
- In what order of priority should their claims be paid?
- Why has “restructuring law” emerged in recent years?
- What is “cross-border” insolvency, and why have the common law courts struggled?
- Should Hong Kong reform its corporate insolvency law?
- How does the Hong Kong insolvency regime interact with the mainland Chinese regime?
Students will also gain practical perspectives in the restructuring practice:
- What restructuring options are available to distressed companies and their creditors?
- For multinational companies based in Hong Kong, whose place of incorporation is in offshore jurisdictions, place of business in mainland China, debts governed by New York law, where should insolvency and reorganisation proceedings be conducted?
- What are the levers available to creditors when the distressed companies fail to engage with them?
- What roles do “ad hoc group of bondholders” play in a restructuring? How do their incentives differ from traditional lenders, such as banks?
- How will the recent restructurings of the Chinese property developers play out?
Corporate insolvency and restructuring is a counter-cyclical practice that has ample opportunities. Even for students intending to embark upon a career in commercial law, financing, or distressed debt investing, an advanced understanding of corporate insolvency and restructuring law is valuable. No prior knowledge of corporate insolvency law is required for this course.
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Alex Huang | TBA | N/A | By email |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Describe and explain the principles of corporate insolvency and restructuring law.
CLO 2 Apply principles of cross-border insolvency law to address Hong Kong-specific cross-border insolvency issues.
CLO 3 Compare and contrast the HK Insolvency law regime with those of the other jurisdictions (UK, US).
CLO 4 Understand the practice of restructuring and insolvency work.
2.2 LLM and JD Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link:
LLM – https://course.law.hku.hk/llm-plo/
JD – https://course.law.hku.hk/jd-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Due date | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Class participation | N/A | 20% | 5 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Presentation | TBC | 30% | 5 | 1 ,2 ,3, 4 |
| Take home exam | TBC | 50% | 2 | 1 ,2 ,3, 4 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by convenor.
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Seminar: | 3 hour(s) / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Private study time: | 9.5 hour(s) / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor(s).
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/