The Richard Turton Award Panel is pleased to announce that the 2021 winner is Abbas Abbasov from Azerbaijan. Abbas is currently a PhD student at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, in Germany, researching cross-border insolvency and restructuring law. He will be writing a paper on “Protection of dissenting creditors’ interests: Direct application of the “substantive fairness’’ test while considering the recognition of foreign restructuring plans”, which will be published in summary in one Eurofenix and in full here. As part of the award, Mr Abbasov is invited to attend the our Congress in Dublin in March 2022.

Apart from the European Insolvency Regulations applicable only between EU Member States, a few international instruments deal with the recognition issue relating to insolvency (and insolvency-related) judgments. Those international instruments, namely the UNCITRAL Model law (for those Member States which have enacted it), the Hague Convention or EU Rome I Regulation, may also be complemented by other specific private international rules. For third countries and the UK (as a consequence of Brexit), a great uncertainty remains therefore in terms of providing the necessary authority for the recognition of such judgments. The Joint project between LexisPSL and INSOL Europe on the recognition of foreign decisions in the 27 EU countries has been designed to address those situations and provide the readers with a description of each national recognition process applicable to those judgments.

As an added value, the proposal had been made by LexisPSL (UK) to make the exercise more concrete than a mere description of national provisions within the scope of this project. That is why the project contains the national provisions which would apply with regard to the recognition of proceedings commenced in the UK in respect of an English Part 26 scheme of arrangement or Part 26A restructuring plan (or the reasons why such recognition would be excluded). Indeed, this project includes restructuring proceedings and/or judgments commencing insolvency proceedings while international texts may exclude them from their scope of application.

This document was prepared by a team drawn from the INSOL Europe Country coordinators with the assistance of INSOL Europe members or other local experts where necessary to complete this valuable research project. Readers will find individuals answers of the contributors from the 27 EU countries but also a table summarising their findings which is reproduced in Appendix I of the publication. We hope that this publication will achieve its aim, namely to ensure that a proper consideration should be given to providing information for all professionals interested in questions arising under the International Private Law of Insolvency.

Download the final publication here. We wish you an insightful reading!

In the week of 13 December 2021, UNCITRAL’s Working Group V on Insolvency Law met largely via UNCITRAL’s Interprefy platform, given the continued threat and restrictions of the COVID 19 pandemic (no schnitzel or strudel for the virtual attendees once again!). Quite quickly, the opening day of the session saw the ground-breaking and timely UNCITRAL Legislative Recommendations on Insolvency of Micro- and Small Enterprises finalised. This is a particularly important development in the current economic climate when MSMEs are facing financial difficulties worldwide.

On the second day, a potential practice or legislative guide on asset-tracing and recovery in insolvency proceedings was discussed. This project is particularly important, as an effective system of asset-tracing and recovery in insolvency would help to maximise the value of an insolvent estate while emphasising the protection of creditors. Although there are a number of challenges that will need to be overcome, such as how to deal with the era of digital trading, the project was viewed as, if nothing else, an educational and information sharing opportunity for which a toolbox could be developed that could aid jurisdictions that are currently without strong mechanisms in this area.

The third topic discussed in the week pertained to applicable law in insolvency proceedings. It was noted that this topic was obviously important, but also quite complex. A particular observation was that harmonising applicable law in insolvency proceedings and reinforcing the application of the lex fori concursus would enhance legal certainty and predictability, prevent abusive forum shopping, and reduce complexities and costs of insolvency proceedings. This idea is of course not unfamiliar to those well-versed in European cross-border insolvency discourse and it is perhaps not surprising that the European Insolvency Regulation (Recast) was brought up on a number of occasions as an exemplar of how this has been accomplished elsewhere, though the appropriateness of any significant borrowing was also met with some caution and even trepidation.

The 59th Meeting of the UNCITRAL Working Group V was productive, if disappointing due to its virtual nature. The next session should be interesting with many difficult cross-border matters to discuss. There are also a new set of recommendations for MSMEs to look forward to, which will be timely for small businesses struggling under the economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic.

A full report by Jennifer L.L. Gant, INSOL Europe WGV Observer, can be downloaded here.

Registration is now open for our Annual Congress in Dublin, 3-6 March 2022. Find out more and register your place here. [Read more]

Thank you for tuning into our “Autumn Speed Networking” session on Thursday, 2 September. We hope you made some new connections with like-minded professionals or managed to catch up with old friends.

We managed to get nearly 40 Young Members and Non-Members of INSOL Europe online. Our dear president, Marcel Groenewegen, opened the event which was a great honor for us and so was the participation of our long time sponsor, Robert Schiebe of Schiebe und Collegen, who had an active role in the session again. 

As Co-chairs it was a great opportunity to give you some background information on what we’ve been doing over the Summer and what our plans are for later this year and next year. It became clear that in the next six months the YMG will be firing on all cylinders: the Autumn Online Conference will include a YMG panel-discussion and a pre-Christmas event is being planned. Early in 2022 we are going “full steam ahead” to Dublin. Member or non-member - don’t miss the YMG drinks reception there! It’s the highlight of the Annual Congress for the young crowd. Last but not least, once more we will strengthen our cooperation with YANIL and with the Insolvency Commission of AIJA so that we have a chance to repeat the legendary time on Mallorca of 2019. 

The actual speed-networking sessions were once again a great success. All the participants had the possibility to meet old and new friends in four different sessions, which each lasted for four minutes. During the breaks between the speed-networking sessions, we had the possibility to exchange thoughts with the larger crowd. The discussion was so lively and the people were so active, we could have carried on for hours. We hope you had the same feeling and that each one of you uses the next opportunity to join in on our next speed networking event and that those of you who are not yet a registered member of INSOL Europe and the YMG feel that it’s time to change that.

If you need a reminder of how the session ran, please feel free to watch the recording on the Young Members Group website.