This exciting volume draws together the views of some of the most eminent figures in corporate law and finance regarding the law on fixed and floating charges. The focus for the book is the litigation in the case of Spectrum Plus, which culminated in a House of Lords judgment in June 2005 ([2005] UKHL 41). This decision has important commercial implications, not only for the parties in the case but also for the business community at large, including banks and other lenders, and practitioners in corporate finance and insolvency. The litigation also raises important juristic questions regarding the fixed/floating charge divide such as the theoretical basis for that divide, how the divide is determined, why it exists at all and whether it ought to be maintained as a coherent doctrine and a beneficial policy. The decision also has important ramifications in both security law and insolvency law and it provides a challenge to some of our most basic conceptions of freedom of contract and the assignability of rights and assets in law and equity. These issues, amongst others, are explored by the contributors to this book. The contributors include Gabriel Moss, who was one of the QCs involved in the Spectrum litigation, Sir Roy Goode, Michael Bridge, John Armour, Robert Stevens, Sarah Worthington, Julian Franks and Oren Sussman, Jenny Payne and Louise Gullifer, Philip Wood, Joshua Getzler, Look Chan Ho, and Nicholas Frome and Kate Gibbons.

"this work will find its audience in reformers of laws on corporate insolvency, security and personal property, and with others not engaged in law reform, but who are interested in it - be they in England, Australia or elsewhere" * Sydney Law Review *
"...[A] collection of essays by a distinguished group of academics and practitioners with great experience in this area....This is an important book. It explores the main issues concerning fixed and floating charges with which we are currently faced. It provides overwhelming support for the proposition that the artificial, uncertain and expensive distinction drawn by insolvency law between fixed and floating charges needs to be abolished." * Richard Calnan, Law Quarterly Review *

Joshua Getzler is a fellow and tutor at St Hugh's College, Oxford and a CUF University Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. Jennifer Payne is the Travers Smith University Lecturer in Corporate Finance at Oxford University, and a fellow and tutor of Merton College.