The III's Judicial Committee

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The Judicial Committee was established in 2008 and made its first presentation in Berlin in the same year. It is one of many technical committees within the III. Its main working topic is the cooperation and communication between bankruptcy courts in cross-border cases.
Currently, its membership is 54 former and sitting judges (27 from North America (US and Canada), 15 from Europe (including UK), 4 from South America, 3 from Asia, 1 from Australia, 2 from New Zealand, 1 from South Africa, 1 from Bermuda).
The majority of them are sitting judges.
From 2012 to 2018, the Judicial Committee had three co-chairs: two from common law jurisdictions (Geoffrey Morawetz, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Toronto, Canada; David Richards, Court of Appeal of England and Wales, London, United Kingdom) and one from a civil law jurisdiction (Eberhard Nietzer, Amtsgericht Heilbronn, Germany).
Currently, only David Richards and Eberhard Nietzer are left as co-chairs because Justice Morawetz retired in September 2018.
III has introduced a new system for committee chairs. Under this system, the Judicial Committe now has two co-chairs and two vice chairs. Every two years, the co-chairs retire and the vice chairs rotate to become co-chairs.
The current vice chairs are Justice Jonathan Harris from the High Court in Hongkong and Hon. Christopher Sontchi from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Please use the "III Judicial Committee" link in the left section of this page for more information on the Judicial Committee's membership.

Since 2012, the Judicial Committee has annual meetings each year on the day before the III's annual conference officially begins.

The Judicial Committee is active in the III's NextGen program.
The program is designed to bring together the next generation (NextGen) of leading insolvency practitioners from around the world and provide them with a first class education seminar and the opportunity to meet with the world’s leading insolvency practitioners, judges and academics.
The nomination criteria to attend the Leadership Program includes being a ‘rising star’ and having between 5 and 14 years of experience in restructuring and insolvency.
The Judicial Committee's contribution to the program is a "Judicial Roundtable" during which the NextGen members have an opportunity to learn from and interact with judges who are members of the Judicial Committee.

In addition to the above, the Judicial Committee contributes a panel presentation each year during the III's annual conferences.

2012

The title of the presentation in Paris on June 22, 2012 was
"Judicial Communications between Common Law and Civil Law Jurisdictions."

2013

During the annual conference at Columbia University in New York in June 2013, the Judicial Committee made another presentation related to the issue of court-to-court communications. The title of the presentation in 2013 was
"ALI/III Global Principles for Cooperation in International Insolvency Cases: Effects on the Language of International Judicial Communications and on Other Aspects of Judicial Communication, Cooperation, and Coordination in Cross Border Proceedings."
The panel making the presentation included judges from the US and the UK, from Brazil, Poland, and Germany.
In the left column, you can find a link for downloading the ALI/III Global Principles for Cooperation in International Insolvency Cases.

2014

In 2014, the Judicial Committee's presentation for the conference in Mexico City was titled
"Case Management and its Impact on International Judicial Cooperation"
The panelists were judges from the US, the UK, and Germany.

2015

On Monday, June 15, 2015, the Judicial Committee made a panel presentation in Naples, Italy, based on a hypothetical cross-border case.
The title of the presentation was "Issues and Answers in Coordinating Cross-Border Casses - Part 1: The Early Stages".
The speakers on the panel were judges from Argentina, Italy, The Netherlands, and the US.

2016

On June 5, 2016, the members of the Judicial Committee met with judges from Japan do discuss and exchange views on cross-border insolvency proceedings.
During the main conference, several members of the Judicial Committee served on the panel discussing the topic "To Have and Have Not: Global Experiences for Jurisdictions That Either Have or Have not Adopted the Model Law".
The "Have Jurisdictions" were represented by England, New Zealand, and the US; the "Have Not Jurisdictions" by France and Germany. The discussion showed that the courts in the "Have Jurisdictions" do not uniformly construe the provisions of the Model Law and that France and Germany do not plan to adopt the Model Law.

2017

The members of the Judicial Committee had their meeting in London on June 15, 2017.
The agenda included presentations on the recast European Insolvency Regulation, the discussion of the presentations, and the discussion of new projects.
As a contribution to the main conference, members of the Judicial Committee presented a mock joint hearing of the High Court in London and the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

2018

The last meeting of the Judicial Committee's members was held in New York on September 23, 2018.
Among other business, the members listened to and discussed a presentation of the Judicial Insolvency Network's (JIN) Court Communications and Cooperation Guidelines.
After the lunch break, the judges and academics got together for the first "Open Joint Session of Judicial and Academic Committees".
The topic of discussion was "The UNCITRAL model law on the recognition and enforcement of insolvency-related judgments: a practical perspective?"
The discussion also included two UK opinions: Rubin v. Eurofinance and Fibria Celulose S/A v. Pan Ocean

2019

The next meeting of the Judicial Committee is planned for June 16, 2019, in Barcelona.