Frank
Tschentscher
President of
INSOL Europe

​At the end of September 2022, 18 EU Member States have notified the European Commission of their compliance with the Directive on Restructuring and Insolvency (EU Directive 2019/1023), namely Greece, Austria, France, Germany, Portugal, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Estonia, Romania, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Ireland and lastly, Spain.

The progress of the implementation of the EU Directive in EU Member States is still available on the INSOL Europe website here.

A few numbers of EU Member States will implement the EU Directive in their national laws only after the Summer break including Poland, Latvia, Malta, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Cyprus and the Netherlands, mainly due to the delay of the national legislative processes. The final implementation of the EU Directive by all EU Member States is then expected for early 2023.

If you are interested to explore whether the implementation of the EU Restructuring Directive has led to the creation of new proceedings or to minor/major changes to existing proceedings or under which conditions creditors can be crammed down for a restructuring plan to be approved by a court, please visit our webpage dedicated to the INSOL Europe/LexisPSL Research on implementation of the EU Directive 2019/1023.

At the time of writing, reports are available for the following countries: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus (on the Draft Bill), Czech Republic (on the Draft Bill), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (on the Draft Bill), Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands (on the Draft Bill) and The UK (before Brexit).

Reports from Poland, Latvia, Malta, Luxembourg, Bulgaria and Belgium are not expected before November 2022 (or even later).

We are grateful to all INSOL Europe Country Coordinators and experts from the EU Study Group or external contributors for their highly valuable input which made this research possible for the benefit of all the INSOL Europe members.

Recent years have seen increasing reliance on complex technologies in ways of work, home life and leisure, a trend which was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for insolvencies among the companies that provide these services requires attention as providers can fail and some already have. Dependence on a few key providers of digital services brings the prospect of exploitation by hackers as well as a possible ‘too big to fail’ scenario and, as with the banking crisis, the possibility of problems caused by a lack of knowledge of the technologies that we rely on. 

There is presently a risk of loss of service in the event of an insolvency but no ready means under typical insolvency procedures for a temporary continuation of service while data is recovered and alternative services are sourced, leaving business and consumer users potentially vulnerable. Any users of online services will be familiar with the disruption that even a temporary outage can bring and an insolvency in this sector therefore has the potential to cause significant losses. 

While it might be expected that customers will fund ongoing services there are potential collective action problems and other cases may be more complicated. Digital services contain many layers of involvement by different service suppliers, each presenting risks of loss of service. 

A forthcoming article in Eurofenix by Rebecca Parry (Professor, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University) will reflect on how insolvency laws can proactively be adapted to better serve customers in this sector.

The Autumn edition of Eurofenix has just been published and is now available to view online here. 

The deadline for European countries to transpose the EU Directive has now passed, but at the time of writing, only 18 EU Member States (out of 27) had complied with the Directive (19 now given that Spain passed its reform to its Insolvency Act in the end of August). Thus, many of the articles in the new issue logically address either the new legislation on restructuring frameworks in some the EU Member States or its implementation in the case of early adopters.

Articles include the first application of the cross class cramdown under an accelerated safeguard in France, the introduction of a preventive restructuring procedure under the likelihood of insolvency and class formation in Denmark, and a comparison between the changes in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The protection of new and interim financing under the EU Directive and its implementation in countries such as The Netherlands, Germany or France is also discussed.

Read the articles mentioned above and more in the new edition of Eurofenix here.

If you would like to propose a feature article, country report or news item for the next edition, please do get in touch with the publishing manager, Paul Newson.

Euorofenix is kindly sponsored by

INSOL Europe is a partner of the Private Equity Exchange & Awards organized by Leaders League. The event will take place on October 19th at the Pavillon d'Armenonville, from 8am to 10:30pm.

Nearly 1000 key players in the European private equity industry will gather for conferences, one-to-one meetings and awards. The event allows an audience mainly composed of business leaders, investors and investment funds to exchange and share on current topics and to celebrate the best players in the industry. 

Jean Baron, our INSOL Europe Country Co-ordinator for France, will be moderating Track 3 Panel 3 session: “Management Team and Turnaround: Align, Impulse, Rebound”.

To learn more about this unmissable event, go directly to the official website and discover the program, the speakers and the awarded categories! 

Register here and use the following code to get 15% discount off the registration fee: PARTNER22