CESSIO BONORUM (Latin for a " surrender of goods ")  , in

Roman law, a voluntary surrender of goods by a debtor to his creditors . It did not amount to a discharge unless the property ceded was sufficient for the purpose, but it secured the debtor from personal arrest . The creditors sold the goods in satisfaction, pro tanto, of their claims . The procedure of cessio bonorum avoided infamy, and the debtor, though his after-acquired property might be proceeded against, could not be deprived of the bare necessaries of life . The main features of the Roman law of cessio bonorum were adopted in Scots law, and also in the French legal system .