A paper examining bankruptcy law in Africa, within the context of global bankruptcy reforms and development, has earned Kent PhD legal scholar Damilola Odetola a Silver Award from the International Insolvency Institute (III).
The prestigious 2018 III Prize in International Insolvency Studies includes publication of Damilola’s essay on the III website, an award cheque for $2000 and complimentary registration to the annual III Conference in New York.
Damilola has also been invited to give a brief synopsis of her paper at the conference and to join the NextGen Leadership program, offering access to international insolvency experts at the III.
As a prize-winner, Damilola’s paper ‘Contesting the Trend Towards the Globalization of Laws in Corporate Bankruptcy: The Experience in Africa’ will also be considered for publication in the Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (West) and for inclusion in the Westlaw electronic database.
The focus of Damilola’s paper is on examining the evolution and process of reforms and developments in bankruptcy law and practice in Africa. With her discussion structured in three parts, Damilola’s paper sets the stage “for future analysis of how new laws would interact with local institutions in African countries” and offers insights on “understanding the globalisation of other fields of law in Africa and other developing economies.”
Damilola began her PhD in law at Kent Law School in 2015 and is also a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She works under the supervision of consumer law expert Professor Iain Ramsay (who has recently been elected to membership of the III) and Professor Amanda Perry-Kessaris who has particular interests in researching and communicating about the economic life of law.
The III Prize is awarded annually for original legal research, commentary or analysis on topics relating to international insolvency studies. It is open to full and part-time undergraduate and graduate students and to practitioners in practice for nine years or less.
This year’s entries were judged by a panel of leading international insolvency academics and practitioners chaired by Professor Christoph Paulus (Humboldt University, Berlin), Professor Jay L Westbrook (University of Texas, Austin) and Hon Samuel L Bufford (Pennsylvania State University). A second Silver Award was won by Shiai Guo from Leiden Law School.
The III is a non-profit, limited-membership organization dedicated to advancing and promoting insolvency as a respected discipline in the international field. Its primary objectives include improving international co-operation in the insolvency area and achieving greater co-ordination among nations in multinational business reorganizations and restructurings. Membership is drawn from the most senior and respected insolvency practitioners, judges and academics in the world and it has valuable liaisons with many of the most senior regulatory and administrative professionals in the insolvency field.