Welcome to the ADB technical assistance site, provided by Blake Dawson.
Background
The Asian Development Bank is undertaking a regional technical ssistance to promote regional insolvency and insolvency related development and reforms in Asia (RETA 5975). The technical assistance involves four countries - Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.
Blake Dawson is the lead consultant firm for the technical assistance. PricewaterhouseCoopers are also consultants. The project leaders are Ronald Harmer and Richard Fisher of Blake Dawson.
The three areas of principal focus for the technical assistance are:
- cross-border insolvency recognition and co-operation;
- informal work-out procedures; and
- the interrelation between secured transactions and insolvency.
The technical assistance has been conducted over a period of four years and has involved a number of conferences and workshops in the region. The initial meeting was held in Manila on 30 September and 1 October 2002.
The second meeting was held in Singapore on 17 and 18 March 2003.
In December 2003, the ASEAN Law Association invited the ADB to make a presentation about the RETA to the 300 delegates at its regional conference.
In January 2004, INSOL India requested the ADB and the International Consultants to attend an international conference entitled "Balancing Recovery, Restructuring and Liquidation - the Emerging Challenges in Asia" to discuss and promote the objects of the RETA held in February 2004. The conference was attended by government and business representatives from throughout the Asian region. Copies of the draft interim report were circulated at the conference.
In May 2004, the APEC Business Advisory Council (APEC)/Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC)/Asian Banking Association (ABA) invited the ADB and the International Consultants to present on insolvency issues concerning the development of a regional bond market in Asia as well as to meet with the ABA and PECC to discuss the promotion of the RETA recommendations.
Subsequent to ADB's participation at the APEC Conference, two groups indicated to ADB the desire to collaborate further to promote RETA recommendations.
First, the ABA wished to consider adoption of the RETA's Principles of Informal Workouts.
The consultants for the RETA developed a Model Agreement to Promote Company Restructuring.In conjunction with the ABA, a number of consultation meetings with ABA member banks were held throughout the region in 2005 to discuss the draft model agreement to promote company restructuring. As a result of feedback at those meetings, the consultants developed a set of guidelines for informal workouts and further refined the model agreement.
The Asian Bankers Association (ABA) at its 22nd General Meeting and Seminar held on 17-18 October 2005 in Melbourne, Australia, formally adopted a set of guidelines for informal workouts and endorsed a Model Agreement for Company Restructuring for use of financial institutions throughout the region.
In adopting the guidelines and endorsing the template agreement, the ABA has stated that it is seeking to address the absence of an international approach to informal workouts in the Asia-Pacific region, which poses a major obstacle to the expansion of investment within the region.
During the same meeting, the ABA also released two position papers. One is entitled "Providing the Legal and Policy Environment to Support Effective Informal Workout Regimes in the Asia-Pacific Region." This contains recommendations that complement the adoption by the ABA of the guidelines for informal workouts and its endorsement of a template agreement for company restructuring. The ABA proposed five measures, which are (a) adoption of a fast-track formal workout regime; (b) enactment of legislation providing for Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation or Voluntary Administration; (c) promotion of a regional center or centers for the resolution by arbitration of cross-border disputes; (d) strengthening of cross-border cooperation and assistance in insolvency cases; and (e) the undertaking of measures to enhance institutional capacity. The other is entitled "Providing a legislative environment to facilitate the effective operation of guidelines to promote informal workouts". This contains a recommendation that the ABA adopt the guidelines for informal workouts and endorse the Model Agreement.
In addition, the ADB co-sponsored the Forum on Regional Insolvency Law Reform (FAIR) to be held in Delhi on 4-5 November 2004. One of the sessions of the conference was dedicated to consideration of the areas covered by this RETA.
The documents below provide an overview of the technical assistance. More detailed information is available from the Issues Paper and the Resources materials which have hyperlinks and .pdf access to a wealth of background material relating to the technical assistance.
The next steps in the technical assistance are to finalise the RETA report and top continue work to further the aims of the RETA including assisting the implementation of the informal workout guidelines and the model agreement to promote company restructuring as well as the measures necessary to provide a legal environment to support effective informal workouts in the region.
Contact Us
For more information on this project, please contact:
Michael Sloan
Senior Associate
T 61 2 9258 6468
E michael.sloan@blakedawson.com
To obtain further information on Blake Dawson, please visit our website www.blakedawson.com
To obtain further information on the Asian Development Bank, please visit its website www.adb.org
To obtain further information on PricewaterhoseCoopers, please visit its website www.pwcrecovery.com
Issues Paper
The best document to view to gain an overview of the current status of the technical assistance is the Issues Paper. To view the Issues Paper, click here.
To provide comments on the Issues Paper, send an email to: adbcomments@blakedawson.com
Resources
A number of useful international materials were distributed to delegates at the recent conference. Those materials are now available on this website. The materials are divided into the three main areas of the technical assistance:
Cross-Border Insolvency
Informal Workouts
Intersection between Secured Transactions and Insolvency Regimes
We have also collated other useful materials, and related websites.
General
Should you have any questions or problems accessing this site, please do not hesitate to contact Blake Dawson via email: it.helpdesk@blakedawson.com
The above files are in an Acrobat (PDF) format and can be read using Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Acrobat Reader software, this software can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html