Alastair Beveridge
President of
INSOL Europe

Navigating the journey of distressed companies

Our 2019 EECC Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is now only 2 months away.

Book here to secure your place and join almost 200 delegates already registered!

We are pleased to announce that our Keynote Speaker is Prof. Marko Simoneti (Department of Legal and Economic Science of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and we look forward to his introductory speech to set the tone for the conference.

We have prepared many surprises and we encourage you to come early and stay late. On 6 June (Thursday) there is a pre-conference networking dinner at the restaurant Gostilna na Gradu in the Castle grounds during which the guests can have a taste of both Slovenia’s culinary and music traditions and on Friday evening there is the Young Members drinks reception.

We hope you will take up the many opportunities to enjoy our conference in Ljubljana and we look forward to seeing you there!

Now only 2 months away

Book here today!

Download the brochure
for full details

INSOL Europe
Annual Congress 
Copenhagen, Denmark 
26-29 September 2019

Registration now open!

Download the Congress Brochure
or Register Online Today! 

Registration for this event
is only available online.

Richard Turton Award 2019 Winner to be invited to attend, all expenses paid.

The Richard Turton Award provides an educational opportunity for a qualifying participant to attend the the Congress and is open to applicants who:

• Are a national of a developing or emerging nation;
• Work in or are actively studying insolvency & restructuring law and practice;
• Students satisfying the nationality requirement, but studying in another country, are also eligible to apply;
• Are under 35 years of age at the date of the application; and
• Have sufficient command of spoken English to benefit from the conference technical programme.

The successful applicant will be asked to write a paper of 3,000 words on a subject of insolvency and turnaround to be agreed with the panel. This paper will then be published in summary in one or more of the Member Associations' journals and on their websites. For full details visit our website here.

The third and last module of our INSOL Europe High-Level Course on Insolvency in Cyprus took place in Nicosia at the Hilton Cyprus Hotel on Friday 22 March 2019 which was followed by approx. 60 attendees (lawyers, chartered-accountants, insolvency practitioners, bankers and officers).

Module III is a distance training part, when all course attendees need to write an essay on a topic of the choice of the attendee, from a proposed list of International, Comparative International-Cypriot and Cypriot insolvency law topics prepared by the general and local directors.

A committee appointed ad hoc composed of international and national experts review the essays and select the best for each proposed topic. Afterwards, the authors of the best essays are invited to present them in the one-day seminar.
 
Thus, the one-day seminar began with the analysis of the most relevant concepts of the future directive on preventive restructuring frameworks by Andrie Kypridemou, followed by the challenges surrounding the future transposition of the future directive in Cypriot law by Achilleas Malliotis & Efrosini Monou (Elias Neocleous, Cyprus).

Morfakis P. Koumas & Christoforos Tsekouras (Stelios Americanos & Co, Cyprus) then provided the audience with a comparison of the systems of liability of directors in insolvency between Cypriot law and the UK and German legislations, with special regard to the causal link in directors’ liability for the insolvent company’s debts.

The presentations then moved to Cypriot insolvency law with an exploration of the key deficiencies in the insolvency Cypriot framework conducted by Aphrodite Kyriakidou (APS Debt Servicing Cyprus) & Roula Katsounarou (Nexia Insolv, Cyprus) who made recommendations for reform. Renos Iioannides & Zinonas Kalogirou (KPMG, Cyprus) focused on the unsuccessful examinership in Cyprus and also presented recommendations for improvement.

Alexandru Airinei & Aphrodite Kyriakidou (APS Debt Servicing, Cyprus) explored how directors could be encouraged to seek insolvency advice in advance of creditor action and ways to ensure their accountability.

The last presentation covered a comparative analysis of office holders’ powers (including receiver managers, liquidators in both compulsory and voluntary winding up procedures, examiners and trustees in bankruptcy, in accordance with Cypriot law conducted by Grigoria Kypri & Louiza Sigar (CRI Group, Cyprus).

The brilliant presentations were followed by very interesting and passionate debates with the discussants and the audience and the day ended with a certificate presentation.
 
The second edition of our INSOL Europe High-Level Course on Insolvency was very successful thanks to the great deal of knowledge of the general director who designed the course, Prof. Ignacio Tirado (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain / UNIDROIT, Italy) and the high-level of expertise and energy of the local director, Chris Iacovides (CRI Group, Cyprus) and his local team of experts: Andri Antoniou (CRI Group, Cyprus), Irina Mișca (CITR Group, Cyprus), Maria Kyriakou (Elias Neocleous, Cyprus), Panayiota Georgiou, Michalis Loizides and Antonis Rouvas (KPMG, Cyprus) and Andrea Jakes (Bank of Cyprus Public Company Ltd, Cyprus).
 
We are very proud of our INSOL Europe High-Level Course on Insolvency which is the torchbearer of the harmonisation of restructuring and insolvency practice in Europe!

Visit our website for further information and updates about the next course.
 
Radu Lotrean & Emma Inacio
Co-chairs of the INSOL Europe High-Level Course on Insolvency

The financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers (2008) had a significant impact on the stability and solvency of Italian banks. In Italy, the banking crisis emerged at a later stage than in other European countries. This is primarily due to the nature of the investments carried out by Italian banks. To generate profits, Italian banks have traditionally been dependent on loans for commercial activities and state obligations. 

They have been less reliant than other Anglo-American and European entities on subprime loans. It was only with the economic crisis (and the consequential rise of non-performing loans) and the fall of interest rates by the European Central Bank (‘ECB’) that the stability of the Italian banking system was detrimentally affected. 

The deceitful and apparent solidity of Italian banks was signalled by the lack of significant cases of distress until 2012, when the Cassa di Risparmio di Teramo (also known as ‘Banca Tercas’) eventually filed for extraordinary administration, an insolvency procedure under Italian law. Eugenio Vaccari, Lecturer, Essex Law School details the case. Read the full Inside 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.

• The implementation of the EU Directive and the practical challenges faced in Nordic countries;
• Restructuring in the region, focusing on the ongoing Componenta Group restructuring in Finland and Sweden;
• The impact of Brexit; and
• Board directors’ liabilities.