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ASTOR'S PRINCIPLES OF INSURANCE INSOLVENCY LAW ISBN 1 873994 61 3; 300 pages; hard cover. £210/$390. A user-friendly, thematically organised practical guide to English legislation, regulation and case law on insurer insolvency. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS: Tables, Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1: MONEY: general and regulatory insolvency; liquidity and solvency; cyclicity; record-keeping; filing requirements; regulatory monitoring systems; accounting standards and techniques used to reveal and conceal the insurer's true financial state; political, social, financial, intellectual and economic challenges to sound solvency regulation; Ponzi nature of an insurer in financial difficulty; relevant assets, reserves, liabilities; letters of credit; dedicated and not-dedicated trust and other funds; quantifying and estimating assets and liabilities; types, sufficiency, availability, accessibility and levels of reserves; matching particular debtors and creditors to particular assets, liabilities and reserves; marshalling assets; tracing and constructive trusts; outward reinsurance; expenses of the insolvency (professional fees); inviting, notifying, lodging and proving inward and outward debts; determining and making payments; contractual discharge and release; pay-outs of compulsory insurance; regulatory compensation schemes; regulatory seizure of assets. Chapter 2: PEOPLE: personam jurisdictional issues; the contracting insurer; pools; fronting; coverholders; underwriting agents; general and insurance debtors and creditors; actual and contingent debtors and creditors; present and future debtors and creditors; secured and unsecured creditors; reinsurance debtors and creditors; classes of debtors and creditors; functions, powers, rights and obligations of majorities and minorities; voting; powers, obligations, rights and liabilities of directors and officers; powers, obligations, rights and liabilities of corporate parent, siblings and offspring; claims against third parties (brokers, underwriters, directors, regulators, irresponsible lenders, directors, lawyers, accountants, auditors, credit rating agencies, shareholders); shareholder rights; the insolvent assured. Chapter 3: DYNAMICS: controlling the insolvency: functions, powers and obligations of regulators, courts, insolvency officials; jurisdictional issues; proper and other venues and fora; governing procedural and substantive laws; limitation periods; lawful and unlawful preferences; transactions at undervalue; other distancing of assets; priorities; particular security, and attached rights, powers and obligations; insurance claims broking; insurance claims handling; insurance commuting; set-off; insurance contract settlement; disclosure and non-disclosure of assured's recourse rights. Chapter 4: PROCESSES: administration; administrative receivership; bankruptcy; CVA; discovery and disclosure; dissolution; IVA; solvent run-off; insolvent run-off; moratorium; provisional liquidation; receivership; outward reinsurance; reinsurance-to-close; scheme of arrangement; statutory transfer of business; liquidation generally; members voluntary liquidation; creditors voluntary liquidation; judicial liquidation.

ASTOR'S INSOLVENCY AT LLOYD'S AND EQUITAS RE, SECOND EDITION ISBN 1 873994 76 1. 400 pages; hardcover. £210 / $390. The only book specifically on insolvency at Lloyd's and Equitas Re. An essential guide to meltdown scenarios at Lloyd's and Equitas Re. Fully revised and updated Second Edition in preparation. SUMMARY OF SECOND EDITION'S CONTENTS: (1) general survey of English insurance insolvency law and insolvency processes (s.425 schemes, CVAs, liquidation, receivership, administration, etc.); (2) regulatory solvency at Lloyd's and Equitas Re; minimum margins of solvency; required collateralisation in UK, US, Illinois, Kentucky, USVI, etc; (3) legal, factual, financial and insolvency analysis of entities and activities of the Lloyd's enterprise (the Corporation; natural and corporate Members; SYA participants; syndicates; SYAs; SYA stamps; managing agencies; Lloyd's brokers; run-off agents, etc.; insurance, reinsurance, reinsurance-to-close, etc.); relevant personal assets and liabilities; the impossibility of insolvency of a syndicate; the absence of proportionate cover inherently at Lloyd's; the front-office recourse irrelevance of a solus and his/its insolvency; (4) the assured's-at-Lloyd's recourse ordinarily at Lloyd's: myth of homogenous securitisation funds; orientation to dedicated and not-dedicated funds; orientation to expressly and arguably available funds; specific trust and other claims payment securitisation funds; US, Illinois, Kentucky, USVI, Australian, South African, etc. trust funds; the Central Fund (including as substitute for conventional insurer's statutory compensation scheme); the vires of New Central Fund Byelaw restrictions on use; recourse to the Corporation's (other) personal assets; absence of law concerning recourse to the Lloyd's enterprise centrally; probable legal effect of "chain of security" and "Security at Lloyd's" centrally disseminated blandishments; FSA Compensation Scheme; (5) the EquitasRe-assured's-at-Lloyd's recourse in the event of insolvency at Equitas Re: relevance of Equitas Re; the mistaken notion of dispossession at Lloyd's; relevance of Equitas Policyholders Trustee Ltd.; content, outcome and relevance of Proportionate Cover Plan, s. 425 scheme, etc.; legal, financial and practical aspects of recourse to the EquitasRe-reinsured solus; back-office collection from the solus on behalf of the EquitasRe-assured-at-Lloyd's by the Lloyd's enterprise, AUA 9, etc.; practical modelling of the effect of Equitas Re's insolvency on the Lloyd's enterprise and relevant trust and other funds; likely competition between EquitasRe-assureds-at-Lloyd's; regulatory seizure of trust funds, etc.

ASTOR'S LAW OF LLOYD'S, SECOND EDITION ISBN 1 873994 41 9. 600 pages; hard cover. £210 / $390. The definitive text on the law of insurance at Lloyd's. Still the only practitioner text specifically on the subject. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS: (1) Components and regulators of the Lloyd's enterprise including the Corporation, natural and corporate Members, members' agencies, managing agencies, active underwriters, Lloyd's brokers, run-off companies; (2) insurance units at Lloyd's: syndicates, syndicate-years-of-account, SYA stamps, SYA participants; (3) the SYA participant: nature, liability, recourse relevance; conventional and other types of reinsurance-to-close; (4) placing insurance: role of the Lloyd's broker; role of the active underwriter; the subscription process; several liability, sole trader, passivity, collectivisation, united front and impenetrability rules; separate contracts principle; (5) delegated underwriting including binders and open covers; (6) the insurance contract: formation, governing law, express terms, construction, implied terms, inherent terms including customary terms; embodying the insurance contract: placing slip, slip policy, policy, certificate, etc.; (7) claims: role and personal liability of local broker, Lloyd's broker, managing agency; when to notify precisely what to whom; agent-for-notice; expressly designated notifiee; strict compliance; disposition of the claim; the claim payment process; (8) front-office recourse: the funds expressly and arguably available at Lloyd's to pay a claim including trust funds in US, Illinois, Kentucky, USVI, Canada, Australia, South Africa etc.; the Central Fund; the Corporation's (other) personal assets; liability of the Lloyd's enterprise centrally (including for pre-contractual representations); recourse relevance of the solus; FSA Compensation Scheme; (9) back-office funding including premiums trust funds, Funds at Lloyd's; the back-office cash conveyor belt; open-YA and closing-YA cash calls; (10) dispute resolution including which and how many SYA participants to sue, how to identify them and their participations, service of suit, agency conduct of the dispute; enforcement; other substantive and procedural issues peculiar to disputes at Lloyd's.

ASTOR'S EQUITAS RE HANDBOOK ISBN 1 873994 26 5. 573 pages; paperback. First published September 2002; re-printed 2003; presently out of print. The first and still the only practitioner text on the law of Equitas Re. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS: (1) the various Equitas entities: Equitas Reinsurance Ltd., Equitas Ltd., Equitas Holdings Ltd., Equitas Policyholders Trustee Ltd., Equitas Management Services Ltd. and the unincorporated EquitasRe-RTC Trustees; (2) Equitas Re's day-to-day run-off and claims handling functions; (3) the EquitasRe-assured's-at-Lloyd's recourse to trust and other claims payment securitisation funds at Lloyd's; (4) insolvency at Equitas Re including detailed discussion of Proportionate Cover. PLUS annotated extracts from Equitas American Trust Deed, Lloyd's American Trust Deed, Lloyd's US Surplus Lines Common-Use Trust Deed, Lloyd's US Credit-for-Reinsurance Common-Use Trust Deed, R&R Settlement Agreement (RRC 1), Reinsurance and Run-Off Contract (RRC 4) and Retrocession Contract (RRC 5).