Balancing the Protection of Business and Employment in Insolvency

Following the economic shocks of 2007/08, the question how best to support effective business rescue and employment protection has become paramount. However, business rescue and employment protection often tend to conflict in law and policy. Employees attached to the sale of a business often represent a liability by reducing the business’s intrinsic value and deterring business acquisitions in view employment liabilities that transfer by operation of the Acquired Rights Directive.

The present book offers a potential solution to this inherent policy conflict by seeking a balance between the conflicting objectives of business rescue and employment protection. This is done through a comparative legal historical analysis of the approaches taken to balancing employment protection and business rescue in the United Kingdom and France. These two countries were chosen due to their legal and political influence in the EU and their archetypically different legal systems. This approach is useful as a background to future reform efforts, as it explains how particular jurisdictions might receive and then implement such reforms given the underlying aims of business rescue and employment protection policies.