Book

Cross-Border Insolvency in the Digital Age: Rethinking Jurisdiction, Recognition and the Treatment of Digital Assets. The global economy has become increasingly borderless, but insolvency law remains deeply rooted in territorial concepts of jurisdiction, assets, ownership and enforcement. A corporation may be incorporated in one country, maintain its principal operations in another, hold assets across several jurisdictions, serve customers throughout the world, and maintain a significant portion of its wealth in digital form. When such an enterprise becomes insolvent, the question is no longer simply how its assets should be distributed among creditors. The deeper challenge is determining which court should exercise jurisdiction, which legal system should govern, which proceedings should be recognised, and how competing claims should be coordinated across borders. These difficulties become even more pronounced when insolvency intersects with digital technology. Cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralised platforms, digital wallets, tokenised assets, decentralised autonomous organisations, blockchain-based businesses and digitally mediated financial structures do not always fit comfortably within conventional legal categories. Their operations may be distributed across jurisdictions without a corresponding physical headquarters. Their users may be located in dozens of countries. Their assets may be controlled through cryptographic mechanisms rather than traditional custodial arrangements. Their legal personality may be contested. Their contractual relationships may span multiple governing laws. And their financial collapse can leave courts confronting questions for which existing cross-border insolvency frameworks offer incomplete answers.