Commemorating 25 Years of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency
Tuesday, 24th May 2022 1:00 pm (GMT +1)
Mr. Neil Cooper specialised in asset recovery and cross-border insolvency issues since early in his career, when he joined a major international accountancy firm and undertook cases in the UK, Africa, the Pacific Rim, North America, Australasia and continental Europe until he retired from practice.
He was heavily involved in the formulation of the Model Law on Cross-border insolvency developed by the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law and all the subsequent work of UNCITRAL Working Group V from 1993 until recently. He has assisted the World Bank developing insolvency principles and guidelines. Neil is past President of INSOL International, Honorary Life President of INSOL Europe and an Honorary Professor at Nottingham School of Law, Nottingham Trent University.
Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1980. He is a Fellow of The Insolvency Institute of Canada, a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, and a member of INSOL International and The International Insolvency Institute. Prior to his appointment to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2005, Chief Justice Morawetz was consistently recognized as a top-tier practitioner of restructuring and insolvency law, in both Canadian and international publications. He has been an advisor to the Canadian Delegation at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Insolvency Law since 2008. He served as Team Leader of the Commercial List from 2010-2013 at which time he was appointed Regional Senior Justice for the Toronto Region. On July 1, 2019, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Jenny Clift was formerly the Principal Legal Officer of the International Trade Law Division, United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (which functions as the Secretariat for the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)), heading the Legislative Branch of the Secretariat, with oversight of the six working groups active at UNCITRAL. As secretary of UNCITRAL’s Working Group V on insolvency law between 2000 and 2018, she led the completion of a number of insolvency texts, including the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law, parts one to four; the UNCITRAL Practice Guide on Cross-Border Insolvency Cooperation; the Judicial Perspective on the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (MLCBI), the revised Guide to Enactment and Interpretation of the MLCBI and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Recognition and Enforcement of Insolvency-Related Judgments and Guide to Enactment. She also led the development of the Model Law on Enterprise Group Insolvency and Guide to Enactment, which was adopted by the Commission in 2019, after she left the Secretariat at the end of 2018.
Christopher J. Redmond is the founder and principal of the Redmond Law Firm LLC. He has been a bankruptcy trustee in the United States since 1978 and has administered over 15,000 cases during that time period, which include consumer cases and business cases. He has also acted as a Chapter 11 trustee, an examiner and a receiver. In addition, he has been appointed as a joint liquidator in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands winding up proceedings.
He has been involved in numerous cross-border insolvency proceedings and has tried numerous cases on the recovery of assets transferred to off-shore jurisdictions. He has represented unsecured creditors’ committees in multi-billion dollar cases, such as Wilson Foods and Farmland Industries, in which creditors received a dividend in excess of 80% of their claims.
He has represented the United States as a delegate to Working Group V (Insolvency) since 2008 up to and including the present date. He has also represented the United States as a delegate to UNODC on commercial fraud issues.From 1999 to 2008, he has been the lead representative of the American Bar Association in Working Group V (Insolvency).
Mahesh Uttamchandani is the Global Practice Manager for Financial Inclusion & Access at the World Bank Group. In this role, he manages the World Bank Group’s global work on Payment & Market Infrastructures, Responsible Financial Access, Fintech and Insolvency.
Mahesh is the Chair of the International Committee on Credit Reporting and oversees the World Bank’s Insolvency & Creditor Rights Task Force.
Mahesh joined the World Bank’s Legal Vice Presidency in 2006, and has since held various positions at both the World Bank and IFC.
Prior to joining the WBG, Mahesh worked at the EBRD and as an insolvency lawyer at a leading Canadian law firm.
Mahesh is a member of the Executive Committee of CGAP, a board member of the legal journal, International Corporate Rescue, a board member of AfricaNenda and an executive board member of INSOL International. He has published and taught at the university level and lectured extensively in North America, Europe, and Asia.
