Insolvency law, worldwide, has enjoyed a fairly stable existence. However, over the past decade, with the emergence of sectoral insolvency law, a phenomenon has emerged that could fundamentally change this area of law.

Whereas this phenomenon was initially limited to the financial sector, the demand for specific rules for the insolvency of companies from a specific sector is becoming more frequent and emphatic. Examples in that regard are: the energy sector, healthcare, cloud service providers or companies with a high societal impact in general.

This research aims to analyse the foundations of this evolution and identify its advantages and disadvantages. Building further on the limited recent literature, this research aims to develop a typology of criteria that can be used when assessing the desirability of developing specific rules of insolvency law for a particular sector.