GARI Insight Report: Global Trends in Repossession and Restructuring – Part 1 1 May 2026

Part 1 Trends in Repossession Rights: what GARI reveals

Watson Farley & Williams’ Global Aviation Resource Index (“GARI”), has become a core reference tool for analysing repossession, deregistration and restructuring procedures across 116 jurisdictions worldwide. We will be exploring some of the key trends that can be derived from GARI. This first instalment focusses on repossession rights; our second article will dive into restructuring trends.

Key takeaways:

• spanning engine accession risk; adoption of the Cape Town Convention (the “CTC”); rule of law compliance strength; and enforcement cost and speed, the trends revealed illustrate how the GARI dataset can be used to extract clear patterns and jurisdictional risk indicators; and
• what emerges is that jurisdictions with strong rule of law compliance and which have ratified the CTC tend to score higher across the repossession metrics.

Engines, identity and the accession dilemma

Few topics animate today’s aviation market like engine accession risk. Engines are traded, leased, swapped and moved across fleets with a speed matched only by the aircraft they power.

In 25 jurisdictions, GARI data shows that a simple act – bolting an engine onto an aircraft – can, in certain circumstances, trigger a legal transformation where the engine stops being its own asset and becomes part of the airframe, with ownership shifting to the aircraft owner. This poses a threat to financiers and lessors because they may lose title or their interest in an engine, simply because it was attached to another aircraft.

Two striking insights emerge:

• 24 of the 25 jurisdictions with accession risk are civil law jurisdictions; and
• 16 of those 25 have not ratified the CTC.

It may be that civil law is more prevalent as civil law systems rely heavily on the doctrine of accession – not a flaw, just a hallmark of a system built on codified certainty.

The CTC, by contrast, provides that an engine retains its identity and ownership even when attached to an airframe. It was designed precisely to neutralise this type of risk.

In theory, the CTC should have primacy over conflicting local laws around merger of title. Yet even here the GARI data surprises: nine CTC‑ratifying states still show accession risk. This would seem to imply that the CTC does not have primacy in the way that it should in such jurisdictions vis-à-vis engine accession risk, or at least that the position has not been tested yet so remains unclear.

Where a state has not ratified the CTC, the risk remains clear: in a dispute, the engine in question may legally belong to someone else.

Two legal traditions, one global sky

Across GARI’s 116 jurisdictions, civil law predominates: 84 civil, 25 common and seven mixed. Each tradition has its own benefits:

• common law systems, anchored in evolving judicial precedent, often demonstrate adaptability, given that judges can interpret and refine legal principles as new circumstances arise; and
• civil law jurisdictions, grounded in comprehensive codes, offer consistency, as judges apply these codes rather than creating law through precedent.

In Europe and Oceania, common law jurisdictions tend to post higher repossession scores. Elements such as availability of self‑help remedies, recognition of foreign judgments and efficient IDERA processes often contribute to their performance.