Bernhard Egger

A Pillar 4 to Basel Iii?: Possible Banking Crisis Management Tools to Establish a Special Insolvency Regime for Banks in the European Union Bernhard Egger

In the course of the financial crisis 2007 ? 2008 governments were forced to rescue a great many of failing banks; these banks could not have been liquidated pursuant to conventional insolvency law due to the probability of heavy repercussions to the banking sector and the whole financial system. Just after the crisis governments realized the need to provide supervisory authorities with adequate banking crisis management tools in order to solve this "too-big-to-fail" problem. This book deals with banking crisis management, in particular with the necessity of a special insolvency regime for banks in the EU. The book examines why conventional insolvency law is not suited for the liquidation of a systemic bank. After outlining the international developments in this regard and comparing the bank insolvency frameworks of Germany, the UK and the US, the book focusses on the actual discussion at EU-level, and in particular the draft directive on banking crisis management and the recent proposal of the EU-Commission for a Single Resolution Mechanism with an own EU-Resolution Fund. The book explains why a special insolvency regime for banks is necessary, which tools are required and what may future developments in this area look like. The book illustrates the status by mid 2013. It was awarded with the Walther-Kastner-Prize of the Austrian Bankers' Association in June 2013.