Warwick Law School welcomes new Professor to our community.

Professor Irit Mevorach joins us from the University of Nottingham. She has been engaged with the law of insolvency, corporate groups, international insolvency, commercial conflict of laws, and bank resolution through practice, teaching, research, and reform work for over twenty years. She has influenced law and policy in these areas as she has been keen to build consensus among policy makers across the world and promote cooperation, while understanding and valuing differences. Irit has provided advice to various government agencies and bodies, including the Insolvency Service, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Ministry of Justice, and to international bodies and organisations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, UNIDROIT (Institute for the Unification of Private Law), the International Insolvency Institute, and the American College of Bankruptcy. She sits on the board of the International Insolvency Institute, participates as the UK delegate expert adviser at UNCITRAL Working Group V (Insolvency), and chairs subgroup III of UNIDROIT Working Group on Bank Liquidation. She is also a member of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Private International Law.

We chatted to find out more...

What did you do prior to joining us?

I was a Professor of International Commercial Law at the University of Nottingham where I also founded and co-directed the University of Nottingham Commercial Law Centre, which strives to make a positive impact on commercial law reform and development both nationally and internationally. I was previously a Senior Counsel at the World Bank (Washington DC) where I advised governments of some ten countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean on reform of business and personal insolvency and creditor/debtor systems and headed the Bank's Global Task Force on Insolvency and Creditor/Debtor Regimes. Before joining academia, I practiced corporate and commercial law as a senior associate at Lipa Meir & Co, law firm in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and earlier I was also trained in the Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.

What will you be doing at Warwick?

I am particularly keen to continue contributing to the development of effective restructuring and insolvency laws around the world. Businesses come in all shapes and sizes and the systems put in place need to fit this myriad of entities, the range of stakeholders involved, and the broader communities. At one extreme of this continuum – multinational business and banks in distress, I’m engaged in promoting a global, cooperative, approach that can bring about beneficial outcomes to stakeholders.

What are your research interests?

I am primarily interested in the intersections of company, insolvency, and private international laws. My research programme focuses on the array of business sizes from the micro and small to the large, cross border, enterprise groups, and financial institutions. Through doctrinal, comparative, empirical, intra-disciplinary, and trans-disciplinary work, I seek to identify legal and capacity challenges and understand decision making processes that can assist in making optimal policy choices.

These interests are reflected in my books:

• Insolvency within Multinational Enterprise Groups (Oxford University Press, 2009)
• The Future of Cross-Border Insolvency: Overcoming Biases and Closing Gaps (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Insolvency, a Modular Approach (Oxford University Press, 2018) with Riz Mokal, Ronald Davis, Alberto Mazzoni, Madam Justice Barbara Romaine, Janis Sarra, Ignacio Tirado, and Stephan Madaus
• Financial Institutions in Distress: Recovery, Resolution, Recognition (Oxford University Press, 2023) with Riz Mokal, Ronald Davis, Monica Marcucci, Barbara Romaine, Janis Sarra, Ignacio Tirado, Stephan Madaus.

What current research projects are you involved in?

One project I’m engaged in at the moment, funded by the International Insolvency Institute, brings together a transnational team of collaborators (experts with extensive first-hand experience of regulatory, judicial, international legal reform, and intergovernmental policy formulation at institutions like the FSB, World Bank, UNCITRAL, and UNIDROIT) to investigate and develop new ideas to address pressing challenges and gaps in the global financial architecture.

We show that political boundaries are often porous to finance, financial intermediation, and financial distress. Yet they are highly impervious to financial regulation. When inhabitants of a country suffering a deficit of purchasing power are able to access and deploy funds flowing in from a country with a surfeit of such power, the inhabitants of both countries may benefit. They may also benefit when institutions undertaking such cross-border financial intermediation experience economies of scale and are able to innovate and offer funds and services at lower costs. Inevitably, however, at least some such institutions will sometimes act imprudently, some of the projects in which such funds are deployed may be unwise, and other such projects can suffer from unforeseen circumstances. As a result of such factors, a financial institution may suffer distress in one country, and may then transmit such distress to other countries in which it operates. The efficacy of any response to such cross-border transmission of distress may turn on the response being given due effect in both (or all) the territories in which the distressed financial institution operates. This situation creates a conundrum for policy makers, legislators, and regulators who wish to enable those subjects to their jurisdiction to access the benefits of cross-border financial intermediation yet cannot make rules and regulations that would have effect outside that jurisdiction. Our project explores this conundrum and offers a response.

We have just published a book (OUP, 2023) based on our work in this project - Financial Institutions in Distress: Recovery, Resolution, Recognition. We are now in the process of presenting and discussing our findings and ideas with the broader community including on 20 October 2023 in a Symposium in Rome. Our analysis draws upon a large body of empirical data collected from regulators from both the Global North and South. We also provide a roadmap for developing a comprehensive international instrument on the cross-border treatment of financial institutions, which we hope will help guide policy makers and going forward, improve our preparedness for local or global financial crises.

Will you be involved in teaching this year?

I will teach LA310: Law of Business Organisations, LA9FN: Foundations of International Commercial Law, and LA9A8: Business and Financial Distress in a Global Context. These subjects are closely linked to and will be led by my research, especially when discussing issues concerning the host of business types and structures and matters in the intersection of corporate law and insolvency. Some examples include the broader duties of directors to consider the interests of creditors, and the relevance of the notion of limited liability in a group context. I am looking forward to discussing with students my ideas regarding the role of private international law, harmonisation, and international organisations in the development and making of international commercial law. The challenges faced by policy makers and legislators in developing the law around these issues are not trivial and the way they are overcome (or not) are intriguing.

Why did you you decide to study/work in law?

Good question! Starting off at university I thought that studying and working in law would provide a good mix, which I thought would fit several of my interests including in international relations, social policy, commerce and business. I was drawn as well to the analytical methods we employ when working in law as well as the ability to evaluate and influence the law through creative and critical thinking.

What attracted you to join Warwick Law School?

I was particularly drawn to the interdisciplinary approach embraced by the School of Law at Warwick, which I believe will provide me with the right type of environment to continue thinking, teaching, and researching the law in context. Also, as a proud Bournvillian (I can practically smell the chocolate), Warwick feels close to home.

What do you like to do when you are not working?

I love reading (I normally have 3 or 4 books I’m reading at the same time). I also enjoy a bit of writing (poems mostly). In recent years, like a lot of us, I started getting hooked on podcasts on various topics from international politics to art. My love of Nordic Noir is probably a bit embarrassing too. I also love spending time with friends and family. In other words, what to do with my spare time is never the problem...

Professor Andrew Williams, Head of School has said "I am delighted to welcome our new colleagues to our academic team. They are outstanding scholars in a variety of fields who each promise to become a major part of our community over the coming years".

Good luck in your first term Irit, we are thrilled to have you with us.

Find out more about Irit’s research on her profile and Orcid page.