The world's banker One wonders what the world will look like when the music stops, The Globe and Mail reported. China, the economic engine of the post-recession era, has already been on a buying spree, striking deals around the world largely in the resources sector. It's also the biggest foreign holder of America's debt, and has helped buoy other countries and companies.

A little geographical imagination helps to convey the scale of joblessness in the West. If the 44m people who are unemployed in the mainly rich members of the OECD lived in one country, its population would be similar to Spain’s. In Spain itself, which has the West’s highest jobless rate (21%), the number of people without work matches the combined population of Madrid and Barcelona. In America the 14m people officially jobless would form the fifth-most-populous state in the union.

The late Herb Stein was fond of saying that things that can't go on forever will come to an end. In the case of the euro zone, it remains to be seen who will deliver the final blow to the shaky monetary union that today includes a shared bailout fund and no fiscal discipline, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary.

For some reason, the issue of debt forgiveness, which has been discussed for years, seems to be back on the table as if it is something new. It is not new, Independent.ie reported in a commentary. Debt forgiveness, debt write-offs, debt restructuring -- whatever term you want to use -- always happens after a credit-driven growth mirage. The reason is simple. In the boom, too much credit was given to people who had no prospect of paying the stuff back and now they can't pay it back.

The annual Eastern European Countries’ Committee (EECC) Conference took place in May in Estonia. Here, Carlos Mack, EECC co-chair, looks at the big issues.

In recent years legal issues concerning state aid in company reorganisations have attracted much attention. One controversy to have arisen is over the question of the circumstances under which a write-off of state claims in a creditor arrangement within the framework of a company reorganisation constitutes a form of state aid, which is forbidden under EU law.

The High Court has set down its position in relation to funding arrangements with court-appointed liquidators. Arrangements to fund a liquidator generally arise in circumstances of lack of assets or readily available assets where creditors want something pursued or liquidation remedies invoked. The case in question(1) concerned a proposed funding arrangement where a secured creditor owed in excess of the value of the secured property.

What are the main lessons to be learned from the international crisis in order to improve insolvency laws? Insolvency practitioners from the United States, Canada, England, Germany and France gave their fascinating ideas and opinions at an international colloquium held in Paris on 18-19 April 2011 under the high patronage of the French Ministry of Justice.

On 28 April 2011 the one-day international conference ‘The Future of the European Insolvency Regulation’ took place in Amsterdam in the Koepelkerk, attended by 150 delegates and speakers from 16 jurisdictions.