It is not always easy to prioritize between the various goals pursued in every insolvency legislation, namely; the continuation of the company, preservation of the jobs, the general economic/public interest and the payment of dividends to creditors.
There is no clear hierarchy in French law amongst these major targets and French case law appears fairly pragmatic. However compared to Insolvency regulations in other countries, French legislation and French case law appear very protective of the interests of the employees.
This seems obvious when one considers, for example,
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From 1 April 2016, conditional fee agreements (CFA), after the event premiums and success fees will no longer be recoverable in insolvency cases.
The legislative change is set to have the biggest impact on lower-value insolvency cases (damages less than £500,000 and legal costs lower than £200,000).
A scandal in the world of letters and old manuscripts would not have gone unnoticed and the French case of Aristophil has lead to extensive press coverage; a massive fraud is suspected with thousands of works and hundreds of millions of euros at stake.
The continued modernisation of the French economy has been a long and difficult process but, as a former British prime minister was fond of saying, “there is no alternative”.
While most jurisdictions provide liquidators with wide investigative powers to locate and realise assets locally, the exercise of such powers becomes more complicated when the assets are situated overseas. As more and more businesses expand globally and corporate structures become equally more complex, the liquidators’ task becomes more problematic in winding up such companies.
In Europe each year there are an estimated 200,000 corporate insolvencies. More than half of the companies set up do not survive their first five years of trading and more than 1.7 million jobs are lost every year as a result. One in five of those companies will have international operations that cross national borders.
The European Union (EU) has sought to introduce an element of harmonization across its Member States, to facilitate the effective operation of cross-border insolvencies.