Projects

In the wake of the financial crisis, citizens across the EU have been hit by austerity measures that are supposed to boost market confidence by ensuring that debtors pay back their debts. Yet what are the historical roots of the tenet that debt must be repaid? "Debt or sin" assumes that this principle stems from the moral theological origins of the law of obligations. Neglect of these roots has created moral confusion in Europe’s management ...

The FWO research project “Debt or Sin?” starts from the hypothesis that the current moral confusion regarding debt and credit started already long before the present European debt crisis, or, for that matter, the rise of classical economics in the 18th century. It assumes that the principle that debts must be repaid and promises honored was elevated by moral theologians and jurists into a fundamental principle for organizing market ...

Imagine the following situations:

(i) Your single-owned management corporation gains your earnings from working. Without the corporation, your earnings would belong to your personal estate.

(ii) Together with your two brothers, you have set up a small business. In doing so, you have invested a part of your personal estate in the business. In order to protect the family aspects of the corporation, you and your brothers ...

The research starts from the remark that in recent years the focus in Insolvency law has shifted from the liquidation and division of the assets of a debtor to the reorganization of the debtors business. In addition, this tendency to reorganize is not limited to private enterprises butcan also be observed in financial institutions and states.
A mutual characteristic of reorganization procedures is their deviation from the principles ...