Mokal, Rizwaan Jameel;
(2003)
On Fairness and Efficiency.
Modern Law Review
, 66
(3)
pp. 452-467.
10.1111/1468-2230.6603008.
Preview |
PDF
Mokal_AAM_On Fairness and Efficiency.pdf - Accepted Version Download (260kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Vanessa Finch, Corporate Insolvency Law – Principles and Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press // This paper is a review of Vanessa Finch’s Corporate Insolvency Law – Perspectives and Principles (Cambridge: CUP 2002). In particular, it examines Finch’s methodology for testing whether some part of this law could be considered ‘legitimate’. Borrowing from Gerald Frug’s well-known analysis of the strategies for attempting to legitimate corporate and bureaucratic power, Finch claims that the ‘legitimacy’ of corporate insolvency law is a matter of its ‘fairness’, ‘efficiency’, ‘expertise’, and ‘accountability’. This paper asks if she provides a coherent understanding of these basic concepts, and whether her deployment of these concepts yields useful insights free of the ‘inconsistencies of reasoning’ that she rightly deplores in the way the law might have developed in the past. The paper argues that Finch does not motivate her choice of ‘technical efficiency’ (referred to in this paper as ‘transaction cost efficiency’) over other understandings of this concept, does not explain the sort of costs this version of efficiency is meant to mitigate, nor the ‘desired ends’ in pursuit of which it is to be harnessed. Because of these deficiencies, Finch fails to notice that ‘expertise’ and ‘accountability’ are in fact aspects or components of ‘efficiency’. The paper explains how the former is a function of coordination costs, the latter is a method for controlling coordination or motivation costs, and the mitigation of both types of cost is very much part and parcel of transaction cost efficiency.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | On Fairness and Efficiency |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/1468-2230.6603008 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.6603008 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Laws |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192638 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
