Courts at work: Bankruptcy statutes, majority rule and private contracting in England (17th-18th century)

Rather than evolving as a platform for renegotiation and debt discharge, as on the Continent, English bankruptcy emerged as a liquidation-only procedure after majority arrangements among creditors were banned in 1621. Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the courts then developed an alternate, private-law set of rules on the basis of the old English trust and the Composition agreement, which belonged of the medieval cross-European Law Merchant. The main advantage of this little-known institution was its perpetual character and the flexibility of its governance, and its main drawback... Mehr ...