News

On 7 December 2022, the European Commission proposed new measures to further develop the EU’s Capital Markets Union (CMU), including a proposal for a Directive harmonising certain aspects of Insolvency Law.

The proposal for a Directive targets the three key dimensions of insolvency law: (i) the recovery of assets from the liquidated insolvency estate; (ii) the efficiency of proceedings; and (iii) the predictable and fair distribution of recovered value among creditors. 

The proposed Directive is divided into nine titles: general provisions (Title I), avoidance actions (Title II), pre-pack proceedings (Title III), duties of directors (Title V), simplified winding-up proceedings for microenterprises (Title VI), creditors’ committee (Title VII) sets out provisions on the creditors’ committee, measures strengthening transparency of national laws on insolvency proceedings (Title VIII) and final provisions (Title IX).

For example, the Proposal includes rules on actions to preserve the insolvency estate (i.e. avoiding actions by debtors that would reduce the value that creditors can get), on creditors’ committees to ensure a fair distribution of the recovered value among creditors; on so-called “pre-pack” proceedings (i.e. where the sale of the business is agreed before the insolvency starts) and on the duty on directors to timely file for insolvency to avoid that the value of the company deteriorates. It also introduces a simplified regime for microenterprises to lower the costs of winding them down and to enable the companies' owners to be discharged from debt, granting them a fresh start as entrepreneurs.

For more information, please see the Proposal available here.
Source: European Commission

Have your say!

The Proposal for a Directive harmonising certain aspects of insolvency law (COM(2022) 702 final) is open for feedback for a minimum period of 8 weeks (08 December 2022 - 03 February 2023  (midnight Brussels time)). Please note however that the eight-week feedback period is being extended every day until the adopted proposal is available in all EU languages.

INSOL Europe members contributions are very important as all feedback received will be summarised by the European Commission and presented to the European Parliament and Council with the aim of feeding into the legislative debate. 

You can write in any official language of the EU (including English) by a free text (4000 characters maximum) or by adding an attachment (files must be less than 5MB). Please be aware that feedback received will also be published on the site of the European Commission.

To have your say, you will need to adhere to the feedback rules and to register or login using your account here.