The Richard Turton Award Panel is pleased to announce that the 2023 winner is Marinela Majnova from North Macedonia. 

Marinela is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business. Marinela will be writing a paper on “Consumer Bankruptcy and the Western Balkan Countries: why do they need it?”, which will be published in summary in one or more of the supporting Associations' journals and in full on our website.

As part of the award, Ms Majnova is invited to attend the INSOL Europe Annual Congress in Amsterdam in October.

We would like to congratulate Marinela on her excellent application, and also thank all the candidates who applied for the award this year and wish them a successful career in their chosen field.

Full details of the Turton Award and papers of the previous winners can be found here.

Call for Expressions of Interest

While we are looking forward to seeing you all at our forthcoming Annual Congress in Amsterdam in October, you may be surprised to learn that we have already started planning our 2024 Congress, which will be held in Sorrento from 3 to 6 October 2024.

The Co-Chairs of the Technical Committee for the INSOL Europe 2024 Sorrento Congress, Rita Gismondi (Gianni & Origoni, Italy) and Bart De Moor (Strelia, Belgium), invite all INSOL Europe members to express their interest to participate as speakers at our flagship event.

All expressions of interest should be sent to Emmanuelle Inacio, and should indicate:
(a) the speaker’s nationality, affiliation and qualifications,
(b) the topic on which the speaker would be interested in speaking, and
(c) a short statement as to what unique or compelling perspective the speaker would like to bring to the congress.

The Technical Committee seeks in particular proposals from speakers who have not been speakers at the last two Annual Congresses.

Expressions of interest should be sent as early as possible, no later than 30 September 2023.
All expressions of interest will be considered by the Technical Committee, although due to the large number the Committee expects to receive, the Committee likely will not be able to accommodate all, or even most, requests.

Now that the closing date of 21 July for receipt of nominations has passed, we can confirm the following situation:

Florian Bruder (Germany) will retain his seat for a second term. David Sequeria Dinis (Portugal) and Patrizia Riva (Italy) were the only nominees for their respective seats, and will therefore automatically be elected to Council with effect from 12 October 2023.

The UK seat has three nominations: Ian Benjamin, Robert Paterson and Simeon Gilchrist whilst the non-reserved general seat has two: Francisco Patricio (Portugal) and Incoronato Cruciano (Italian but living and working in Germany).

All members can vote on the general seat whilst UK members only can vote for the UK seat.

Full details and the voting link can be found on our website.

There is value in certainty, and it is hard to get certainty in litigation – which is an inherently risky endeavour. What are the options available to insolvency office holders when assessing potential litigation claims? Is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush?

Historically, litigation assets within insolvent estates have been difficult to realise and have often been overlooked as a result. In the past, valuable claims would be abandoned because of a lack of funds to pursue. Alternatively, they would be compromised at an early stage, on unfavourable terms, to protect against an aggressive defendant attempting to take advantage of the uncertainty caused by the insolvency. 

Often, key information required to evidence the case is missing or difficult to identify from within the insolvent entity’s books and records. Factual witnesses may be unwilling or unavailable to assist and give evidence.

Further complications arise where the insolvent entity’s business and/or assets are sold. Frequently, yet often unintentionally, valuable claims sold for nil consideration as sale and purchase agreements often sweep up unknown intangible assets - which may encompass valuable litigation claims. When the facts of the claim(s) come to light later on following investigation, the rights to the claim(s) have already been assigned. This creates a potential windfall for the new purchaser with no value to the original entity’s creditors.

Read the full article by Gwilym Jones (Managing Director, Henderson & Jones, London) and Piers Elliott (Director – Legal, Henderson & Jones, London) in the latest edition of Eurofenix (page 30-31).

On 30 May 2023, the Supreme Court of UK rendered a decision in case No. 925/1248/21 on the bankruptcy of Joint-Stock Company Scientific-Production Enterprise Smila Electromechanical Plant (Smila, Ukraine).

In this decision, the moratorium on the fulfillment of obligations under which the Russian Federation or persons related to it are creditors, introduced on 3 March 2022 by Resolution No. 187 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, was practically and finally implemented for the first time, reports Roman Marchenko, Attorney at Law, Senior Partner at Ilyashev & Partners, Insolvency Receiver.

Within the framework of case No. 925/1248/21, the Representative Office of Smila Electromechanical Plant LLC (Moscow, Russia) lodged a claim with monetary claims against the debtor for the amount exceeding EUR 600,000.

The courts of first and appellate instances came to conclusion that, according to the provisions of Article 17 of the Constitution of Ukraine and subparagraph 1, paragraph 1 of the Decree No. 187 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the stated claims of the creditor - a person associated with the aggressor state, cannot be fulfilled and recognized due to the current moratorium on their fulfillment, and therefore such a claim was left without consideration.

In its turn, the Supreme Court did not fully agree with the conclusions of the courts of previous instances and, by its Judgment dated 30 May 2023, cancelled the decisions of the court of appeal and the local court in terms of leaving the claim of Representative Office Smila Electromechanical Plant LLC (Moscow) without consideration, and in the cancelled part issued a new decision by which dismissed the above claim for the recognition of the monetary claims.

Considering for the fact that, according to Ukrainian legislation, the courts are obliged to take into account the conclusions on the application of the rules of law set forth in the judgments of the Supreme Court, we predict that now, when considering the monetary claims of creditors related to the aggressor state, the courts will be guided by the conclusions set forth in the above judgment and dismiss the claims of such creditors.

​Now less than 2 months to go!

Download the Conference Brochure • Technical Programme

With thanks to our Academic Sponsor: