Biographies of Participants
The Rt. Hon. the Lord Hoffmann is a Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, Oxford University. He recently retired as a senior member of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, which was the United Kingdom's equivalent of the United States Supreme Court. He served in this position from 1995. Born in South Africa, Lord Hoffmann studied at Cape Town University and then as a Rhodes Scholar at Queen's College, Oxford University. He taught law at University College, Oxford, and practiced law in London before becoming a member of the High Court in 1985. Of special relevance here, he authored widely regarded judgments in two international insolvency cases of unusual importance, McGrath v. Riddell (HIH), [2008] UKHL 21 and Cambridge Gas Transportation Corporation v Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Navigator Holdings plc, [2007] 1 AC 508. He also sat as the High Court judge in perhaps the most successful of all multinational insolvency cases, Maxwell Communication Corp.
Judge Leif Clark has been a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Western District of Texas for over 22 years and has authored several decisions important to the development of international insolvency law in the United States. He has taught as an adjunct professor for both the International Law LLM program of the McGeorge School of Law and the University of Texas School of Law. He also helped to design, and then to participate as an instructor for judicial training programs sponsored by USAID for insolvency judges in central and eastern Europe. Judge Clark has participated in the international insolvency law projects of the International Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the National Bankruptcy Conference, the International Insolvency Institute, INSOL International, and UNCITRAL.
Professor Ian Fletcher is Professor of International Commercial Law at University College London. He is a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn and practices from 3-4 South Square, Gray’s Inn. He is the author of numerous works including The Law of Insolvency (4th Edition 2009) and Insolvency in Private International Law (2nd Edition 2005; Supplement to Second Edition 2007). He is Editor-in-Chief of the INSOL International Insolvency Review, and a contributing editor to Palmer’s Company Law. He is also a joint editor of Moss, Fletcher and Isaacs, The EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings: A Commentary and Annotated Guide (2nd Edition 2009).
Professor Jose M. Garrido: Senior Counsel and Head of the Insolvency Initiative of the World Bank. He is a Professor of Commercial and Corporate Law in Spain, and was General Counsel of the Spanish Securities Commission (2001-2005), as well as advisor in corporate governance matters to the European Union (2001-2009). Professor Garrido has written extensively on insolvency priorities and his work has been a major influence in the treatment of priorities and secured credit in the Spanish insolvency legislation.
Judge Allan Gropper has been a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York since 2000, following a career as head of the bankruptcy and reorganization practice group at White & Case. Judge Gropper was active in international insolvencies and restructurings and was located in the White & Case Hong Kong office during the year 1999-2000. He has lectured in several foreign countries on insolvency matters and is a co-editor of a two-volume text entitled International Insolvency published in 2000. He is adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School, as well as a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference and the American College of Bankruptcy.
Professor Edward Janger is the David M. Barse Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. Professor Janger is a well-known authority on commercial transactions and bankruptcy law. He has taught courses on international insolvency at Harvard Law School, New York University Law School and Brooklyn Law School. His recent articles on international bankruptcy have appeared in the Brooklyn Journal of International Law and, shortly, in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. He is the past-chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Commercial and Consumer Law, and he has served as consultant to the Business Bankruptcy Subcommittee of the Federal Bankruptcy Rules Advisory Committee. He has held positions as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as Scholar-in-Residence at the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Professor John A. E. Pottow, University of Michigan Law School, is an internationally recognized expert in the field of bankruptcy and commercial law. His award-winning scholarship concentrates on the issues involved in the regulation of cross-border insolvencies as well as consumer financial distress. He has published in prominent legal journals in the United States and Canada and testified before Congress. An oft-invited lecturer, he has presented his works at academic conferences around the world and frequently provides commentary for national and international media outlets such as NPR, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN and the BBC.
Professor Jay Westbrook, Benno C. Schmidt Chair of Business Law, University of Texas Law School, has written extensively about international and comparative insolvency law, most recently as senior author of A Global View of Business Insolvency Systems (Brill 2010). He has taught at Harvard Law School, the University of London, Humboldt University-Berlin, and University College London. He served as the United States Reporter, American Law Institute Transnational Insolvency Project; as Co-chair, U.S. Delegation to the UNICITRAL Conference on Transnational Insolvency; as President of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law; and as a Senior Advisor, United States National Bankruptcy Review Commission.