This is the time of year when we consider retirements from and elections to our Council.

Reserved Seat Vacancies
Countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and in October this year, vacancies will arise for the following:

• Spain: Adrian Thery will have completed his first 3-year term of office and has agreed to stand again for election against other nominations.
• Ireland: A vacancy has arisen since Barry Cahir was appointed last year as Vice President.
• Belgium: A new vacancy has arisen as this country has recently achieved the qualifying number of 30 members.
• France: Jean Baron will have completed his first 3-year term of office and has agreed to stand again for election against other nominations. 

Therefore, members from Spain, Ireland, Belgium and France have received an email requesting nominations for candidates from their own country.

Non-Reserved Seat Vacancies
1 x non-reserved seat vacancy on Council (which may be occupied by any country) will become available as Laurent Le Pajolec will have completed his first 3-year term of office and has agreed to stand again for election against other nominations. All members are entitled to nominate a candidate from any country.

If you have not yet received email notification of the election process, please contact Membership Manager Hannah Denney.

To find out about the role of Council Members, please read the attached document.

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Executive Officers
At the close of the OGM on 2 October 2020, Marcel Groenewegen (Neths) became Presdient, replacing Piya Mukherjee (Denmark) who becomes Immediate Past President. Frank Tschentscher (Germany) became Deputy President and Barry Cahir (Ireland) was appointed as Vice President. Eammon Richardson (Ireland) replaced Chris Laughton as Treasurer. Caroline Taylor (UK) stepped down as Director of Administration and became Event Strategy Director on a part-time basis.  

A full list of all the changes and new appointments are shown here. 

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This is the time of year when we consider retirements from and elections to our Council. Countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and in October this year, vacancies have arisen for the following seats: Germany, Italy, UK and Portugal. Therefore, members from these countries will have received an email requesting nominations for candidates from their country, and now the opportunity to vote for their chosen candidate. 

RESERVED SEAT VACANCIES

• GERMANY: As three nominations have been received, a vote will therefore take place and members from Germany will be invited to vote by email. Only fully paid-up members from Germany are eligible to vote. The successful candidate will be the one receiving the highest number of votes by 10 September 2020.
• ITALY: Giorgio Corno. As no other nominations were received, Mr Corno will automatically be elected to his second 3-year term of office with effect from 2 October 2020.
• UNITED KINGDOM: Frances Coulson. As no other nominations were received, Ms Coulson will automatically be elected to her second 3-year term of office with effect from 2 October 2020.  
• PORTUGAL: As two nominations have been received, a vote will therefore take place and members from Portugal will be invited to voteby email. Only fully paid-up members from Portugal are eligible to vote. The successful candidate will be the one receiving the highest number of votes by 10 September 2020.

NON-RESERVED SEAT VACANCY

• As no further nominations have been received, Rita Gismondi will automatically be elected to her second 3-year term of office with effect from 2 October 2020.  

If you have not yet received email notification of the election process, please contact Membership Manager Hannah Denney.

To find out about the role of Council Members, please read the attached document.

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Executive Officers
At the close of the Copenhagen Congress in September, Alastair Beveridge (UK) became Immediate Past President and was replaced by Deputy President Piya Mukherjee (Denmark) as the new President. Vice President Marcel Groenewegen (Neths) became the new Deputy President and Frank Tschentscher (Germany) was duly appointed by Council as the new incoming Vice President. Chris Laughton (UK) agreed to remain on as Treasurer for one further year. Furthermore, Caroline Taylor (UK) Director of Administration announced her plans to remain in office for one further year with a view to continuing her assistance on the Secretariat on a part-time basis after that time.   

Council
Following the 2019 Council Election process, the following situation arose:

RESERVED SEATS

• Austria: Susanne Fruhstorfer preferred not to stand again for a 2nd 3-year term of office and was succeeded by Matthias Prior.
• Denmark: This is a new seat as Denmark now has over 30 members (the qualifying number for a reserved seat on Council). Michala Roepstorff was successful in the voting process and began her first 3-year term of office.
• Ireland: Barry Cahir retained his seat for a 2nd term office.
• Netherlands: Alice van der Schee (previously in a non-reserved seat) began her second 3-year term of office.
• Romania: Simona Milos preferred not to stand for a 2nd  3-year term and was  succeeded by  Vasile Godinca.
• Sweden: As numbers had dropped below 30, the reserved seat on Council was lost  
• Switzerland: Thomas Bauer retired after his 2nd 3-year term and was succeeded by Sabina Schellenberg who began her first 3-year term of office. 

NON RESERVED SEATS
David Rubin completed his 2nd 3-year term of office and Alice van der Schee had moved into the reserved seat for the Netherlands. The successors of those 2 seats were Evert Verwey (Neths) and Georges-Louis Harang (France). This year 2 new non reserved seats for countries not currently represented on Council were made available and duly taken by Jan Lilius (Finland) and Frank Heemann (Lithuania).  

Co-opted Seats:  
The following have been co-opted to Council:

• Radu Lotrean (in his capacity as EECC co-chair and for his work on the High Level Courses).
• Alberto Nunez Lagos (in his capacity as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing and co-chair of the Development Committee). 
• Steffen Koch (in his capacity as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing and the new Board member for INSOL International liaison).
• Tomas Richter (in his capacity as chair of the Academic Forum, succeeding Michael Veder).
• David Rubin (in his capacity as co-chair of the Sponsorship Committee).

Retirements:
Therefore, in view of the above, we say goodbye and thank you to the following people who now retire from Council:

• Hans Renman (Sweden)
• Susanne Fruhstorfer (Austria)
• Simona Milos (Romania)
• Thomas Bauer (Switzerland)
• Michael Veder (Netherlands)
• Catherine Ottaway (France) 
• Robert van Galen (Netherlands)

Honorary Members:
From time to time, the Council of INSOL Europe are entitled to confer honorary membership on any person who, in their opinion, has given outstanding meritorious service to the insolvency profession or who has performed outstanding work on behalf of the Association. This year honorary membership was awarded to Michael Veder who had been chair of the Academic Forum since 2016 and also Steffen Koch in his capacity as past President and co-chair of both the Turnaround Wing and Strategic Task Force 2025. Steffen also became the newly appointed INSOL Europe representative on the Board of INSOL International.  

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Executive Officers: At the close of the Athens Congress this month, Radu Lotrean (Romania)  stepped down as President to become Immediate Past President, Alastair Beveridge (UK) became the new President, Piya Mukherjee (Denmark)  became the new Deputy President and Marcel Groenewegen (Netherlands)  was elected by Council as incoming Vice President.

Chris Laughton (UK) remains as Treasurer and Caroline Taylor (UK) as Director of Administration.
 
Council: There were also several changes to the structure of Council. As a reminder, countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and the following situation arose this year:

• A vacancy became available for Spain and France’s reserved seats as Vicente Estrade and Marc Senechal retired from Council.   
• Frank Tschentscher came to the end of his first 3 year term of office holding the reserved seat for Germany and agreed to stand for re-election against other nominations.
• Poland lost their reserved seat on Council as membership numbers fell below 30. 

Therefore, nominations from members in Spain, France and Germany were invited for candidates from their own country. Following the nomination and election process, Adrian Thery was duly elected to the reserved seat for Spain for his first 3 year term of office, Jean Baron to the reserved seat for France for his first 3 year term of office and Frank Tschentscher to the reserved seat for Germany for his second 3 year term of office.

One non-reserved seat vacancy on Council also became available (which may be occupied by any country) as Piya Mukherjee (Denmark) had been appointed as Vice President in the previous year.   2 nominations were received and following the election process, the successful candidate was Laurent Le Pajolec (representing Poland).    
 
Each year, Council may co-opt or re co-opt  a maximum of 8 members to Council and this year the following members were appointed: Michael Veder (Netherlands), as chair of the Academic Forum, Catherine Ottaway (France), as  representative of INSOL International and Constitution specialist, Wolf Waschkuhn (UK), as co-chair of  STF 2025, Steffen Koch (Germany)  as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing and co-chair of STF 2025, Evert Verwey (Netherlands), as co-chair of EECC, Robert van Galen (Netherlands), as EU co-chair and Brexit matters, Alberto Nunez-Lagos as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing  and our newcomer Georges-Louis Harang (France),  as co-chair of the Young Members Group. 
 
Honorary Membership for outstanding meritorious service on behalf of the Association was awarded to Heinz Vallender (Germany), chair of the Judicial Wing, who steps down after 13 years of service and also Alberto Nunez-Lagos (Spain), Past President and co-chair of the Turnaround Wing.
 
Secretariat: Wendy Cooper retired from the Secretariat and was duly thanked for her 11 years of service. Wendy will be missed by all colleagues and members who knew her during her time as INSOL Europe’s Membership and Conference Registrations Co-ordinator and we wish her well for the future. Going forward, recently appointed Event Manager, Harriet Taylor, will take charge of Conference Registrations and Hannah Denney will take charge of Membership, to become Sponsorship & Membership Manager

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