The Hoffmann Chronicles: The Quest to Full Universalism
If Guan Siew (p.784) suggested in 2008 that the recent landmark cases of Cambridge Gas v Navigator Holdings [2007] and re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] were “significant moves towards the goal of universalism,” then ostensibly the question begs, what impact has the July 2010 Court of Appeal case of Rubin & Lan v Eurofinance [2010] had on the increasingly borderless and neighbourly international insolvency landscape? More compelling, following the principle judgement from Ward LJ in the Court of Appeal, leave to appeal has been approved. Thus insolvency judges, practitioners, academics and regulators across the globe can eagerly await the ultimate judgement on the matter from the Supreme Court at some stage between late 2011 and early 2012. It remains to be seen whether we can expect the prevailing ethos of transnational judicial cooperation to continue and whether we can expect the Supreme Court judgement of 2011/2012 to build upon the ‘Hoffmann Chronicles’ (Cambridge Gas, HIH and Rubin) and to further the judicial and legislative quest towards full unmodified universalism?
