The EU Directive on Preventive Restructuring Frameworks (the“Directive”) precipitated a pan-European review by Member States of their corporate restructuring statutes. Several Member States (including Germany and the Netherlands), as well as the United Kingdom, made sweeping changes to their insolvency processes, in some cases introducing entirely new restructuring mechanisms. By contrast, Ireland preserved its examinership regime, introduced over 30 years ago.

The Irish Government is planning to take measures in the areas of settlement finality, insurance, and insurance distribution in the event of a 'no-deal Brexit'. The relevant measures are set out in Parts 7 and 8 of the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2019 (the “Withdrawal Bill”), which was published on 22 February 2019. These measures are in addition to a number of measures already taken at EU level.

Settlement Finality

With two decisions (No. 1895/2018 and No. 1896/2018), both filed on 25 January 2018, the Court of Cassation reached opposite conclusions in the two different situations

The case

The Constitutional Court (6 December 2017) confirmed that Art. 147, para. 5, of the Italian Bankruptcy Law does not violate the Constitution as long as it is interpreted in a broad sense

The case

With the decision No. 1195 of 18 January 2018, the Court of Cassation ruled on the powers of the extraordinary commissioner to require performance of pending contracts and on the treatment of the relevant claims of the suppliers

The case

The Court of Cassation with a decision of 25 September 2017, No. 22274 confirms that Art. 74 of the Italian Bankruptcy Law provides a special rule, which does not apply to cases to which it is not explicitly extended

The case

With the decision No. 1649 of 19 September 2017 the Court of Appeals of Catania followed the interpretation according to which a spin-off is not subject to the avoiding powers of a bankruptcy receiver

The case

Applicable law

The Italian Government has been delegated to enact a comprehensive restatement of the whole set of rules of insolvency procedures, with specific innovative addresses regarding (to mention only the most important) the concordato preventivo procedure, venue rules, an out-of-court mediation alert process to timely address a risk of insolvency, new forms of security and a streamlined set of priorities among creditors

Introduction

The Court of Padua (15 June 2017) ruled that, in the procedure provided by Legislative Decree No. 270/1999, the three-year statute of limitations period provided by Art. 69-bis of the Italian Bankruptcy Law starts from the declaration of insolvency and not from the authorization of the plan for the sale of the business

The case