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into account the powers enjoyed by city governments in the Low Countries, which were both ample but also constrained by the central government, the authors trace the development of one particular type of contract and transaction -sixteenthcentury marine insurance, a growing sector for which Antwerp became the key centre. By laying bare the negotiation process which preceded the compromise, they find that decisions on the legislation regarding marine insurance were both politically and economically induced. The three major agents (merchants, city government and central government) were not monolithic blocs: within the Antwerp mercantile community different opinions on marine insurance and its legislation could be heard.There were 'national' differences and small-time insurance purchasers thought differently about state legislation than their larger colleagues and insurers. Parties with political clout also had a stronger voice in negotiations. Antwerpen (c. 1550Antwerpen (c. -c. 1570 De wetgeving rond economische praktijken in de zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanden werd in belangrijke mate bepaald door de complexe interactie tussen verschillende belangengroepen (economische agenten, stedelijke overheid en centraal gezag). De kunst van het compromis. Onderhandelingen over wetgeving voor het zeeverzekeringswezen in article -artikelDave De ruysscher en Jeroen Puttevils zijn van mening dat top-down (de vorst legt zijn regels op) en bottum-up modellen (kooplieden willen hun

The history of Belgian corporate insolvency law demonstrates the lasting effect and the replication of implicit legal–economic conceptions. Even though, since the middle of the 19th century, pre‐insolvency proceedings were made available in Belgium, the effectiveness of these proceedings was limited. This was due to the dysfunctional juxtaposing of proceedings and the reluctance of the legislator to change earlier approaches. Closely related thereto was the lack of impact assessments preceding legal reforms and the continuation of ideas regarding the restrained powers of courts and preferential treatment of secured creditors. Debates in Parliament turned around principles, not around the effect or harmonisation of laws. Members of Parliament typically had had legal training; economic analyses were largely absent. In the course of the 20th century, new ideas on broader intervention by judges were put down in draft bills, but only a small portion of them made it to become legislation. The 1997 law on restructuring proceedings went farthest in granting competences to the commercial court for assessing the feasibility of reorganisation schemes, but this was readjusted in 2009. As a result, judicial restraint is still present, and the rights of secured creditors are considered paramount, this in spite of contrary foreign examples. Strong path dependence in Belgian corporate insolvency law is the result of prevailing beliefs and cannot be attributed to lobbying efforts or deliberate choice. Copyright © 2018 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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In nineteenth-century France, Belgium and the Netherlands, laws imposing pre-insolvency proceedings had different goals. In a first stage, from around 1810 until about 1860, continuity of businesses in distress was not a policy consideration. Rather, legislators purported to give the creditors early control over the insolvent's estate, which was most often liquidated. Debtor-in-possession features were mostly conceived of as a temporary reward for cooperation; lowered requirements for re-entry in the market after the winding-up of their business were another advantage for cooperating debtors. This was the same in the three aforementioned countries. In the 1870s and 1880s, the French and Belgian legislators created new pre-insolvency proceedings, which allowed debtors to keep their assets. In the Netherlands, fixed-term moratoriums prevented such an approach. Yet, also in Belgium and France, the exemption of secured creditors hampered the feasibility of compositions, and a goal of saving firms in financial peril.