This book shows that a special bank bankruptcy regime is desirable for the efficient restructuring and/or liquidation of distressed banks. It explores in detail both the principal features of corporate bankruptcy law and the specific characteristics of banks including the importance of public confidence, negative externalities of bank failures, fragmented regulatory framework, bank opaqueness, and the related asset-substitution problem and liquidity provision. These features distinguish banks from other corporations and are largely neglected in corporate bankruptcy law. The authors, an assistant professor for money and finance and a research economist at the Dutch Central Bank, propose changes in both prudential regulation and reorganization policies that should allow regulators and banking authorities to better mitigate disruptions in the financial system and minimize the social costs of bank failures. Their recommendations are complemented by a discussion of bank failures from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Matej Marin? is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana. He is affiliated with the Amsterdam Center for Law & Economics. His main area of research is financial intermediation. His articles were published in several international journals, including Industrial and Corporate Change, and books and his work was presented at many international conferences. He also serves as a referee for several international journals. Marin? received an MA from the University of Ljubljana, and a PhD in economics from the University of Amsterdam.

Razvan Vlahu is Research Economist at De Nederlandsche Bank (Dutch Central Bank). He holds a PhD from University of Amsterdam and an MPhil from Tinbergen Institute. His research is focused on Financial Intermediation, Banking Regulation, Financial Stability and Experimental Banking and has been presented to major conferences including the EFA and FIRS annual meetings.

From the contents:
1 Introduction

2 General Issues in Bankruptcy Law
3 Are Banks Special? Implications for Bank Bankruptcy Law
4 Systemic Crises
5 General Issues on the structure of Banking Industry
6 Current Bank Bankruptcy Regimes and Recent Developments
7 Optimal Design of Bank Bankruptcy Law and the Bank Failures from the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis
8 Conclusions
9 Appendix