On 7 February 2019, my article entitled “No deal Brexit – impact on insolvency” was published on Lexology. That article was published shortly after the Insolvency (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the “2019 Regulations”) were made.

On 13 September 2018 the Government issued guidance relating to civil legal cases and insolvency cases where there was a ‘no deal’ scenario: ‘Handling civil legal cases that involve EU countries if there’s no Brexit deal’ (I shall refer to this as the “Notice” in this article).

Regulation (EU) 2015/848 (the “Insolvency Regulation”) states at Recital 23 of its preamble that main insolvency proceedings can be opened in a Member State where a debtor has its centre of main interests (“COMI”). It goes on to state that those proceedings have universal scope and are aimed at encompassing all of the debtor’s assets. The Insolvency Regulation further details  at Article 3(1) that a debtor’s COMI is where the debtor conducts the administration of its interests on a regular basis which is ascertainable by third parties.