This doctoral submission represents over ten years of focused research that has resulted in a unique collection of academic and professional articles. The epithet "unique" is adopted to reflect that over those years this area of study has been relatively untouched by other academic researchers. This submission presents a total of eight academic and seven professional journal publications that chronicle the major output of numerous research projects undertaken between 1992 and 2002. The publications adhere to a central aim - to investigate the practical use and complex interactions between stakeholders of the individual insolvency rescue vehicle the Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). The research projects employed a variety of relevant methodologies to populate an emerging conceptual model of the prime factors affecting the incidence, usage and outcomes of IVA cases. The first five articles report and develop the data collected during the various projects. The articles build on each other, analysing results and comparing these with previous studies to underline reliability in the data. The final three articles draw threads from the research data and develop the conceptual model further. As a research progression this submission contains all of the necessary ingredients of a doctoral thesis. It focuses on a discrete body of knowledge, builds on a conceptual model, gathers valuable data and tests it, draws strong conclusions and, finally, establishes and contributes new theory in this area of study.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise traite de la théorie de la ruine, et plus spécialement des modèles actuariels avec surplus dans lesquels sont versés des dividendes. Nous étudions en détail un modèle appelé modèle gamma-omega, qui permet de jouer sur les moments de paiement de dividendes ainsi que sur une ruine non-standard de la compagnie. Plusieurs extensions de la littérature sont faites, motivées par des considérations liées à la solvabilité. La première consiste à adapter des résultats d’un article de 2011 à un nouveau modèle modifié grâce à l’ajout d’une contrainte de solvabilité. La seconde, plus conséquente, consiste à démontrer l’optimalité d’une stratégie de barrière pour le paiement des dividendes dans le modèle gamma-omega. La troisième concerne l’adaptation d’un théorème de 2003 sur l’optimalité des barrières en cas de contrainte de solvabilité, qui n’était pas démontré dans le cas des dividendes périodiques. Nous donnons aussi les résultats analogues à l’article de 2011 en cas de barrière sous la contrainte de solvabilité. Enfin, la dernière concerne deux différentes approches à adopter en cas de passage sous le seuil de ruine. Une liquidation forcée du surplus est mise en place dans un premier cas, en parallèle d’une liquidation à la première opportunité en cas de mauvaises prévisions de dividendes. Un processus d’injection de capital est expérimenté dans le deuxième cas. Nous étudions l’impact de ces solutions sur le montant des dividendes espérés. Des illustrations numériques sont proposées pour chaque section, lorsque cela s’avère pertinent. / This master thesis is concerned with risk theory, and more specifically with actuarial surplus models with dividends. We focus on an important model, called the gamma-omega model, which is built to enable the study of both periodic dividend distributions and a non-standard type of ruin. We make several new extensions to this model, which are motivated by solvency considerations. The first one consists in adapting results from a 2011 paper to a new model built on the assumption of a solvency constraint. The second one, more elaborate, consists in proving the optimality of a barrier strategy to pay dividends in the gamma-omega model. The third one deals with the adaptation of a 2003 theorem on the optimality of barrier strategies in the case of solvency constraints, which was not proved right in the periodic dividend framework. We also give analogous results to the 2011 paper in case of an optimal barrier under the solvency constraint. Finally, the last one is concerned with two non-traditional ways of dealing with a ruin event. We first implement a forced liquidation of the surplus in parallel with a possibility of liquidation at first opportunity in case of bad prospects for the dividends. Secondly, we deal with injections of capital into the company reserve, and monitor their implications on the amount of expected dividends. Numerical illustrations are provided in each section, when relevant.

The long awaited insolvency act in force - Act 182/2006 Coll., changed the whole insolvency process by enabling new solutions to handle corporate insolvency issues. Among the most revolutionary features is the facilitation of a reorganization process. The thesis focuses on legal and economic aspects of the reorganization framework and compares it with the possibility solution of bankruptcy liquidation. The thesis analyzes the reorganizations of company called Kordarna, a.s. and also three subsidiary firms belonging to the KORD Group companies, which have been the first major test of the reorganization framework under the current Czech Insolvency Act. After the analysis of the procedural steps throughout the insolvency proceedings, the thesis arrives at a conclusion that given the circumstances, the chosen reorganization procedure was the best possible solution to Kordarna's insolvency for all classes of creditors and also other involved stakeholders. Moreover, the slow pace of the process is also discussed in detail. An important conclusion is reached in the field of bankruptcy estate valuation, where the thesis claims that the values of bankruptcy estates valuations were unrealistically high, because the adverse impact of the current extraordinary asset market conditions was never fully considered.

As a topic of my dissertation I have chosen a " Liquidation of capital commercial companies cancelled by a court." The reason to choose this topic was the fact, that it is a process not discussed by the professional public as much, including the "forced company liquidation", which is executed on the base of court decision. Other reason was the situation, when there is a constant growth of dysfunctional companies, that are unable of further business activity and the bodies of such companies do not participate on their functioning. I concentrate on liquidation of the capital companies in my dissertation that are typical with only property interest of the partners on the business activities of the company. The purpose is to describe the current state of liquidation process from the theoretical point of view and also focusing on the practice and jurisprudence, which in many cases is not uniform. The opening part presents the main area of the chosen issue with focus on dysfunction of the commercial company. The first part analyses the reasons leading to cancelation of the company with liquidation by court, while the reasons are mainly legal. It is possible to categorize the reasons on general and special, although it is theorized of factual reasons, that relate above all with inactivity of the...

As a topic of my dissertation I have chosen a " Liquidation of capital commercial companies cancelled by a court." The reason to choose this topic was the fact, that it is a process not discussed by the professional public as much, including the "forced company liquidation", which is executed on the base of court decision. The reason was the situation, when there is a constant growth of dysfunctional companies, that are unable of further business activity and the bodies of such companies do not participate on their functioning. My diploma thesis discuss of a liquidation of capital companies, that are typical with the capital participation of the partners, i.e. money appraisable deposit into the company determining their shares in the company. Such companies are the limited liability company, which is the most favorite organizationally-legal form, through which the business activity is performed, and joint stock company and this thesis also mentions european company. Liquidation is a complex of a commercial, administrative, tax and accounting acts pursuing settlement of property and other aspects of the liquidated company. Considering these reasons we can evaluate the current legislation of the liquidation as fragmented. The aim of this thesis is to comprehensively compile the topic of winding up a...

L’objet de cette thèse est d’étudier les dispositifs de protection de l’emploi dans l’entreprise en difficulté. Elle met en exergue la difficile articulation entre les mécanismes du droit du travail et ceux du droit commercial, qui semble souvent mener à l’effacement du premier devant les impératifs du second. Le titre I est ainsi consacré à l’examen des prérogatives confiées aux représentants des salariés afin de défendre leur intérêt collectif, l’emploi, lorsque la situation de l’entreprise est compromise. L’accent est particulièrement mis sur l’absence de moyens d’action efficaces, plaçant les salariés dans le rôle de spectateurs, et non d’acteurs, du processus décisionnel relatif à la détermination du sort de l’entreprise. Le titre II s’intéresse, quant à lui, à la place octroyée à l’emploi au regard des objectifs que la loi a attribué au droit des entreprises en difficulté et qui doivent être poursuivis par le juge. Il constate que l’impératif de maintien de l’emploi s’efface devant l’objectif prioritaire que constitue la sauvegarde de l’activité économique. Ainsi, en dépit des réformes successives ayant touché le droit des entreprises en difficulté, la prise en considération de l’emploi demeure timide. L’implication apparente des salariés masque leur mise à distance des principales décisions relatives à la détermination du sort de l’entreprise. L’emploi, en particulier lorsqu’il est soumis à l’instrumentalisation des procédures collectives par des groupes désireux de se débarrasser, à moindre coût, de leurs filiales, est envisagé avant tout comme une variable ajustable de l’entreprise en difficulté. / The object of this thesis is to study the mechanisms of employment protection of firms in crisis. It highlights the difficult articulation between the mechanisms of the labor law and those of the commercial law, which often seems to lead to the disappearance of the first in front of the imperatives of the second. Title I is dedicated to the examination of the resources assigned to the staff representatives to defend their collective interest, employment, when the situation of the company is compromised. The emphasis is particularly put on the absence of effective means of action, which places the employees in a spectators’ role, instead of an actors’ role, in the decision-making concerning the determination of the future of the company. Title II is interested in the place granted to the employment with regards to the objectives that law attribute to the crisis firms law and which must be pursued by the judge. He notices that the imperative of preservation of employment disappear in front of the priority objective constituted by the protection of the economic activity. So, in spite of the successive reforms having affected the commercial law, the consideration of employment remains shy. The visible implication of the employees masks their removal from the main decisions relative to the determination of the future of the company. Employment, in particular when it’s subject to the instrumentalization of the collective procedures by groups avid to get rid, at a lower cost, of their subsidiaries, is above all considered as an adjustable parameter of the firm in crisis.

En grundläggande princip för ett aktiebolag är att aktieägarna inte har något personligt betalningsansvar för bolagets förpliktelser. I syfte att skydda bolagsborgenärerna så finns det i aktiebolagslagen ett flertal kapitalskyddsregler. I 25 kap. ABL finns de så kallade kapitalbristreglerna. Reglerna bygger på att när en kritisk kapitalbrist har uppstått, så ska styrelsen iaktta ett visst handlingsmönster som syftar till att antingen läka kapitalbristen, eller inleda en ordnad avveckling av bolaget. Underlåter bolagets företrädare att vidta de åtgärder som lagen föreskriver så kan dessa personer bli solidariskt medansvariga med bolaget för de förpliktelser som uppkommer därefter. En grundläggande utgångspunkt i syfte att skydda bolagets borgenärer är att den kontrollbalansräkning som handlingsmönstret ålägger bolaget att upprätta ska granskas av bolagets revisor. Syftet med den oberoende granskningen är att förhindra att styrelsen fuskar med kontrollbalansräkningen genom antedatering, eller genom att t.ex. tillämpa felaktiga värderingsprinciper. Efter avskaffandet av revisionsplikten 2010 finns det inte längre något krav på granskning för små aktiebolag i Sverige. Detta har påverkat över 350 000 aktiebolag och riskerar att utgöra ett reellt hot mot borgenärsskyddet. Syftet med studien är således att undersöka hur avskaffandet av revisionsplikten har påverkat borgenärsskyddet i kapitalbristlagstiftningen. En kvalitativ innehållsanalys har tillämpats för att besvara studiens syfte. En granskning av myndighetsdokument, offentliga utredningar, förarbeten och lagtexter har genomförts för att få en helhetsbild för det befintliga rättsläget. Vidare har juridisk doktrin och lagkommentarer från auktoritativa parter samt kommentarer från dags- och kvällstidningar granskats i syfte att åskådliggöra eventuella tillkortakommanden med kapitalbristreglerna efter avskaffandet av revisionsplikten. Granskningen ligger till grund för den kronologiska genomgång som resultatet bygger på. Våra slutsatser påvisar att kapitalbristreglerna i första hand ämnar att skydda bolagets borgenärer. Det har i lagens förarbeten identifierats meningsskiljaktigheter angående vilka intressenter som faktiskt tillgodoses av revisorsgranskningen som kapitalbristreglerna till stor del lutar sig mot. Studien har också funnit att ett flertal auktoritativa myndigheter såsom Ekobrottsmyndigheten, Riksrevisionen, Brottsförebyggande rådet och Skatteverket har riktat kritik mot avskaffandet av revisionsplikten och dess effekter. Den slopade revisionsplikten kvarstår alltjämt, trots kritiken, vilket tyder på att företagarorganisationerna som stödjer reformen tillsammans utgör ett inflytelserikt intressentkollektiv. Slutligen kan konstateras att avskaffandet av revisionsplikten har försämrat det skydd som borgenärer tidigare åtnjutit genom 25 kap. 13-18 §§ ABL. Då revisorns oberoende granskning utgjort en grundpelare i kapitalbristlagstiftningen så förefaller den befintliga lagen inte vara ändamålsenlig i syfte att skydda ett borgenärskollektiv. / A basic principle for a limited company is that the shareholders have no personal responsibility for the company’s liabilities. In order to protect general creditors the Swedish Companies Act contains several capital protection rules. Chapter 25 in the Swedish Companies Act contains the so-called capital shortage rules. The rules are based on the fact that when a critical capital shortage has arisen, the board must observe a certain pattern of action that aims to either restore the shareholders’ equity, or petition the court for a liquidation order. If the board of directors fails to take the measures prescribed by law, these individuals may become jointly and severally liable for obligations that incur during the period of such failure to act. A fundamental premiss for the purpose of protecting the company’s creditors is that the balance sheet for liquidation purposes needs to be examined by the company’s auditors. The purpose of the auditors examination is to prevent the board from cheating with the balance sheet for liquidation purposes by backdating, or by applying incorrect valuation principles. After the abolition of the audit obligation in 2010, there is no longer any requirement for auditing for small limited companies in Sweden. This has affected more than 350 000 companies and risks being a real threat to the creditor protection. Thus, the purpose of the study is to examine how the abolition of the audit obligation has affected the credit protection in the capital shortage rules. A qualitative content analysis has been applied in order to fulfill the purpose of the study. An examination of government documents, public investigations, preparatory works and legal texts has been carried out in order to identify the existing legal situation. Furthermore, legal doctrine and legal comments from authoritative parties as well as comments from daily and evening newspapers have been examined in order to illustrate eventual shortcoming with the capital shortage rules, after the abolition of the audit obligation. The examination forms the basis of the chronological review on which the result is based on.Our conclusions prove that the capital shortage rules primarily aim to protect the company’s creditors. Disagreements have been identified in the law’s preparatory works regarding which stakeholders that actually are catered by the auditors’ audit on which the capital shortage rules are based on. The study has also found that a number of authoritative authorities such the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, Swedish National Audit Office, Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and the Swedish Tax Agency have criticized the abolition of the audit obligation and its effects. The abolished audit obligation still remains, despite the criticism, which indicates that the corporate organizations that support the reform, together constitute an influential stakeholder collective. Finally, it can be stated that the abolition of the audit obligation has impaired the protection that creditors previously enjoyed through Chapter 25 sections 13-18 in the Swedish Companies Act. Since the auditor’s unbiased review constituted a cornerstone of the capital shortage rules, the existing law does not appear to be appropriate in order to protect a creditor’s collective. This paper is hereinafter written in Swedish.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (specializing in Taxation) Johannesburg 2015 / Due to the vast number of groups of companies having many subsidiaries that are no longer viable from an economic perspective or that no longer gain the tax benefit that they were first created to achieve, there are many group restructurings occurring. These restructurings are to potentially simplify the group structure as well as achieve the maximum tax benefit. This research report will analyse how groups may be restructured in line with the provisions of the Income Tax Act (‘the Act’) as it stands currently by looking back at how restructurings were dealt with in the past and how that has now evolved. The research discusses the corporate rollover relief provisions that may be applied in order to simplify the restructuring process which is commonly used in today’s practice. The research suggests that there are many different ways to restructure a group in order to gain the maximum amount of benefit from a tax perspective. Key Words: branch, capital gains tax (CGT), corporate income tax, corporate rollover relief, deregistration, foreign tax resident, general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR), liquidation, partnership, restructure, value-added tax.

Le droit des contrats connaît un renouvellement de ses sources à l’initiative de l’Union européenne, du Conseil de l’Europe et de la doctrine. Leur présentation a été ordonnée autour de la distinction entre un droit européen issue des institutions européennes – droit de l’Union européenne et Convention européenne des droits de l’homme – et un droit transnational élaboré par la doctrine. L’interaction très originale entre ces différentes sources a fait émerger un droit privé européen de nature à alimenter une nouvelle réflexion sur la notion de contrat. L’ancrage du droit des contrats dans les droits nationaux rendait difficile l’élaboration d’une notion européenne de contrat transversale à ces différentes sources de droit. La compréhension contemporaine de la notion nécessitait de revenir sur la construction historique de la notion de contrat, du droit romain aux codifications nationales du droit civil (Code civil, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch). Chaque droit national considéré – droit allemand, droit anglais, droit français – a forgé une notion de contrat dotée d’une forte identité. Les codifications doctrinales contemporaines, principalement les Principes du droit européen du contrat, offrent une notion renouvelée de contrat dont l'élaboration a nécessité une déconstruction des notions nationales de contrat. La découverte d’une notion de contrat en droit privé européen impliquait la mise en évidence d'un fondement théorique solide. Celui-ci a été recherché dans la théorie du contrat relationnel, de telle sorte qu’elle innerve l’ensemble de la démonstration. Qu'il s'agisse du droit transnational ou du droit européen, le contrat relationnel a vocation à expliquer certaines évolutions du contrat décrites dans cette étude, à savoir un étirement et un enrichissement de la notion. Elle s’étire dans le sens où son acception est plus large que dans les droits nationaux. Avec l'apport des concepts de bonne foi et d'attente légitime, elle s’enrichie par ses sources en devenant une notion mixte à la croisée de la Common law et du droit continental. Elle s'enrichie également par son contenu en intégrant l'équilibre contractuel et l'incomplétude pour devenir une notion pluraliste de contrat. / The foundations of contract law continue to evolve under the initiative of the European Union, the Council of Europe and doctrine. Their presentation was arranged around the distinction between a European law based on institutions –European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights – and transnational law dictated by doctrine. The fresh and original interaction between these two sources created a European private law that is likely to shape new thinking about the notion of contracts. Because contract law had been based in national legal systems, developing a European notion of contracts that transcended these different sources was difficult. A contemporary understanding required revisiting the historical construction of the notion of contracts, from Roman law to national forms of civil law (the French Code civil, the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch). Each national legal system examined here (German, English and French) developed a distinct forms of contract law. However, contemporary doctrinal codifications, particularly the Principals of European Contract Law offered new ways of thinking about contract law by deconstructing its various national bases. Discovering the notion of contracts in European private law required putting forth a solid theoretical foundation. Indeed, the theory of relational contracts is at the heart of this study. Whether founded in transnational or European law, it serves to explain, among other evolutions, the extension the notion of the contract such that it finds greater acceptance than in national law. The relational contract, with the concepts of good faith and reasonable expectation, now situates the notion of the contract at the crossroads of Common and continental law. Further enriched by the concepts of contractual balance and incompleteness, the notion of contract has become a pluralistic one.

Gegenstand dieser Arbeit sind stochastische Kontrollprobleme im Kontext von optimaler Portfolioliquidierung in illiquiden Märkten. Dabei betrachten wir sowohl Markovsche sowie nicht-Markovsche Preiseinflussfunktionale und berücksichtigen den Handel sowohl im Primärmarkt als auch in Dark Pools. Besonderes Merkmal von Liquidierungsproblemen ist die durch die Liquidierungsbedingung induzierte singuläre Endbedingung an die Wertfunktion. Der Standardansatz für linear-quadratische Probleme reduziert die HJB-Gleichungen für die Wertfunktion - je nach Zustandsdynamik - auf (ein System) partielle(r) Differentialgleichungen, stochastische(r) Rückwärtsdifferentialgleichungen beziehungsweise stochastische(r) partielle(r) Rückwärtsdifferentialgleichungen (BSPDE). Wir beweisen neue Existenz-, Eindeutigkeits- und Regularitätsresultate für diese zur Lösung optimaler Liquidierungsprobleme verwendeten Differentialgleichungen mit singulärer Endbedingung, verifizieren die Charakterisierung der zugehörigen Wertfunktion anhand dieser Differentalgleichungen und geben die optimale Handelsstrategie in Feedbackform. Für Markovsche und nicht-Markovsche Preiseinflussmodelle wird eine neuartiger Ansatz basierend auf der genauen singulären Asymptotik der Wertfunktion vorgelegt. Für vollständig Markovsche Liquidierungsprobleme erlaubt uns dieser, die Existenz glatter Lösungen der singulären partiellen Differentialgleichungen zu zeigen. Für eine Klasse von Problemen mit Markovscher/nicht-Markovscher Struktur charakterisieren wir die HJB-Gleichungen durch eine singuläre BSPDE, für die wir die Existenz und Eindeutigkeit einer Lösung über einen Bestrafungsansatz herleiten. / We study stochastic optimal control problems arising in the framework of optimal portfolio liquidation under limited liquidity. Our framework is flexible enough to allow for Markovian and non-Markovian impact functions and for simultaneous trading in primary venues and dark pools. The key characteristic of portfolio liquidation models is the singular terminal condition of the value function that is induced by the liquidation constraint. For linear-quadratic models, the standard ansatz reduces the HJB equation for the value to a (system of) partial differential equation(s), backward stochastic differential equation(s) or backward stochastic partial differential equation(s) with singular terminal condition, depending on the choice of the cost coefficients. We establish novel existence, uniqueness and regularity results for (BS)PDEs with singular terminal conditions arising in models of optimal portfolio liquidation, prove that the respective value functions can indeed be described by a (BS)PDE, and give the optimal trading strategies in feedback form. For Markovian and non-Markovian impact models we establish a novel approach based on the precise asymptotics of the value function at the terminal time. For purely Markovian liquidation problems this allows us to establish the existence smooth solutions to singular PDEs. For a class mixed Markovian/non-Markovian models we characterize the HJB equation in terms of a singular BSPDE for which we establish existence and uniqueness of a solution using a stochastic penalization method.