Gerard McCormack & Reinhard Bork (eds), Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation

The prospect of greater harmonisation of the laws of security rights in the UK (including those of Scotland as well as England) with other EU member states seems a forlorn hope at present. Indeed, Gerard McCormack and Reinhard Bork, the editors of Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation, suggest that the Brexit vote on 23 June 2016 may cast a “long shadow” (vii). The book was the product of research supported financially by (among others) the Civil Justice Programme of the EU and provides an excellent account of security rights in insolvency in select EU member states, along with insightful analysis of provisions of the European Insolvency Regulation (1346/2000, now in the form of the recast European Insolvency Regulation (2015/848)). The “recasting” during the course of the project must have been somewhat frustrating but, luckily, the provisions relating to security rights are largely unchanged (an exception being that the recast Regulation gives more detail regarding the deemed location of encumbered assets (see 21ff)).