ONE MORE THING:THE ECONOMIC crash has meant that now, more than ever, insolvency practitioners in various countries should be working more closely together to rescue struggling businesses or wind up failed ones.

Jim Luby, a 30-year insolvency veteran and partner at Dublin firm McStay Luby, has taken over as president of Insol Europe, an insolvency association with 1,100 members in 47 countries (inside and outside Europe).

“It’s about trying to get people who are involved in rescuing businesses to work better together,” Luby says.

McStay Luby, which Luby runs with another experienced insolvency accountant, John McStay, has been involved in the rescues of CityJet, Tipperary Crystal, cable company Chorus and Westmeath car-parts company Iralco. The firm is associated with Zolfo Cooper, the accountancy group that owns investigations firm Kroll.

Luby uses CityJet as an example of how greater co-operation between practitioners in different countries would help the rescue of a business.

He says he had to secure a court order in the UK to stop an airport there from seizing a CityJet aircraft in the late 1990s, even though the company already had court protection in Ireland.

The collapse of Eurofood, part of Italian group Parmalat, showed how courts in different jurisdictions differ on insolvency matters. Agreeing a quick consensus among insolvency practitioners in other countries is essential to save a business, Luby says, so Insol helps to focus minds on cross-border solutions.

“If you are going to rescue businesses, you have to do it fast.”

On the other hand, Irish property receiverships are a drawn-out process. Luby says his firm is hopeful that a plan would soon be agreed for the former proposed head office of Anglo Irish Bank, the eyesore in the Dublin Docklands and one of McStay Luby’s receivership jobs.