Piya Mukherjee
President of
INSOL Europe

Watch the final film here

The committee is delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s award is Odwa Ngxingo from South Africa. Odwa is currently working at ASOC Management Company (Pty) Ltd. as a portfolio manager dealing with business rescue and distressed private equity funds, and is active in promotion of insolvency and business rescue awareness in South Africa.

You can download his paper on “Attitudes towards investing capital in restructuring and turnaround situations, and the multiplier effects deriving therefrom” here. It will also be published in summary in Eurofenix.

Odwa Ngxingo receiving his award at the Gala Dinner in Copenhagen

As part of the award, Odwa was invited to attend the INSOL Europe Congress on 26-29 September 2019 in Copenhagen, Denmark. We would like to congratulate Odwa on his excellent application, and also thank all the candidates who applied for the award this year and wish them successful career in their chosen field.

Find out more about the Richard Turton Award on our website.

The bankruptcy of natural persons not conducting economic activity has been in use in Poland since 2009. Initially, the legislation on so-called consumer bankruptcy did not fulfil its purpose. It was mainly because a consumer filing a petition for bankruptcy was obliged to prove that his or her assets were sufficient to cover the costs of proceedings. Also, the so-called “morality threshold” was set too high: the debtor had to prove that he or she had become insolvent by not acting recklessly and negligently (for reasons not attributable to him/her).

In the period from the entry into force of the regulations to their amendment, only about 60 bankruptcy proceedings were conducted against persons not conducting business activity, compared to the overall population of 38 million people in Poland. The situation improved as a result of changes in the bankruptcy law passed in 2014. The new regulations in Poland are outlined by Marta Romańska, Attorney-at-Law, Filipiak Babicz and Patryk Filipiak, Attorney-at-Law, Restructuring Advisor, Filipiak Babicz. Read the full story and other articles here.

If you would like the opportunity to have your Inside Story published in a future edition, please email Communications Manager, Paul Newson for details.

Over two days in early November (7/8), subjects broached included the Directive and its implementation, security rights in the insolvency context, the intersection of insolvency and company law as well as the interaction of the Directive and the Recast European Insolvency Regulation, the last two subjects receiving particular attention in the update of CJEU case-law to which the conference also gave attention. Lastly, the themes of Brexit and recognition of the UK scheme process also received mention. 

By far the single most debated topic was that of the Directive and how it would be implemented by the member states over the next two years. Focus was given to issues, such as the class formation, plan content, valuation, cross-class cram-down, the priority rules (absolute and relative) as well as the safe harbour and protection for new and interim finance. Sessions held across the conference generally considered how implementation would play out as member states came to grips with quite complex themes essential to early restructuring efforts and the avoidance of formal insolvency. In this light, a round-table held the first day offered insights into how 5 different jurisdictions might approach the process, particularly given pioneering domestic developments in the preventive restructuring arena.

The quality of the presentations and interventions was extremely high and very well-received by attendees drawn from across Europe. Delegates also enjoyed the hospitality of the ERA at a convivial dinner held between the two days of the event. All acknowledged that, as the first event of many likely to occur across the implementation period, the conference in Trier set a high standard for the debates to come.

Panelists noted the recent case of a Russian court which imposed a freezing order on the assets belonging to a lawyer who arguably gave a fraudulent piece of advice to the debtor. Another hot topic was the bankruptcy of spouses – Russia expects a bill regulating co-tenancy of spouses in case of bankruptcy of one.

This last topic will also be one of the discussion points at the next event being held by The Russian Insolvency Club on 20 December, which will also include panels on “Expenses of insolvency practitioners spent on lawyers through disputes with the creditors (case Industria v DIA)" and “Inheritance of the debt based on vicarious liability (case Vostoknefteproduct v Shefer)”. Insolvency Club Russia is an organization which has been designed to unite insolvency lawyers and insolvency practitioners around the country as well as develop best insolvency practices. The Club was established in 2018 and is quite popular within the insolvency society. INSOL Europe member Oleg Zaitsev is the Club’s Chairman. 
 
You can contact Dmitry Konstantinov, our Country Co-ordinator for Russia (and Сounsel, Head of Insolvency and Financial Restructuring at Ilyashev & Partners, Moscow, Russia), for further information about these or future events in Russia.