New Bank Insolvency Law for China and Europe (Vol 1) Matthias Haentjens, Qingjiang Kong and Bob Wessels (eds)

China's rapidly evolving banking system plays a vital role in fuelling the Chinese economy. However, the mechanisms for dealing with insolvent banks are in the early stages of development. This volume is the first in a series entitled New Bank Insolvency Law for China and Europe, resulting from a research project between Matthias Haentjens and Bob Wessels of Leiden Law School's Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law and Qingjiang Kong of China University of Politics and Law on determining “how best to achieve a modernized bank insolvency regime for China and the EU”.

The title refers to future reforms as there is no unitary law regarding bank insolvency in China, leaving administrative bodies and courts to rely on the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law of the People's Republic of China (EBL) and provisions within the Commercial Bank Law (2012), Law on the People's Bank of China (2003), and the Law on Regulation and Supervision over the Banking Industry (2003). The volume explores the relationship between these, and other provisions, noting that the bank insolvency regime is still developing as “many of the relevant provisions are either ambiguous in expression and unsophisticated in substance, or dispersed with poor implementation criterion”. The author expertly describes the current legal landscape while providing a policy context, thereby providing an information rich resource invaluable in understanding the Chinese bank insolvency system.