In response to the EU Commission's proposal for a directive to harmonse specific elements of insolvency law on 7 December 2022, this article explores avoidance actions, one of the Directive Proposal’s key aspects, and the way avoidance actions are regulated in Serbia and Montenegro as EU candidate countries.

In the context of insolvency proceedings, avoidance actions involve the annulment of transactions undertaken by the insolvent debtor before the initiation of insolvency proceedings.

Avoidance actions in Serbia

In response to the proposal by the EU Commission on 7 December 2022 that an EU Directive be issued to harmonise certain aspects of insolvency law, this article provides a look into one of the main topics of the draft directive – pre-pack reorganisation proceedings as regulated in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are candidate countries for accession to the EU.

On 7 December 2018, Serbian Parliament passed yet another Act on Amendments of Bankruptcy Law that will be applicable as of 1 January 2019.

These changes make the third change of the Bankruptcy Law in less then a year.

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