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

The Supreme Court of Cassation (19 October 2017, No. 24682) discerns the respective scope of application of the criteria for the liquidation of compensation to the lawyer in case there was no specific agreement between the parties

The case

1. Section 90K(1)(aa) of theFamily Law Act1975 (Cth) provides that a court may set aside a financial agreement if the court is satisfied that a party to the agreement entered into the agreement for purposes including the purpose of defrauding or defeating creditors, or with reckless disregard to the interests of the creditors.

In certain circumstances, liquidators may be at risk of personal exposure to costs orders in litigation. 

The court’s approach to the making of costs orders against liquidators depends on (amongst other things) whether the liquidator is a named party to the proceedings, whether the liquidator is commencing or defending proceedings, and whether the liquidator has acted ‘improperly’ or unreasonably in the commencement, maintenance or defence of the action.

Proceedings commenced by the liquidator / company in liquidation

On 19 October 2017, the Bankruptcy Amendment (Enterprise Incentives) Bill 2017 was introduced into Parliament by the Commonwealth Government in order to reduce the default period of bankruptcy from three years down to just one year. The stated objective of the Bill is “to foster entrepreneurial behaviour and reduce the stigma associated with bankruptcy whilst maintaining the integrity of the regulatory and enforcement frameworks for the personal insolvency regime.”

The case

The receiver of a bankrupt joint-stock company sued its directors before the Court of Rome, in order to ascertain their liability, pursuant to Article 146 of Bankruptcy Law.

More precisely, the bankruptcy was considered the result of a transaction particularly burdensome with respect to the company’s share capital and unjustified in relation to the economic value of the block of shares acquired.

Summer is over and Autumn is truly upon us bringing back many of the winds that seemed die down in the golden summer of Macron. Eurosceptic parties have made electoral gains in Germany and in Austria and the same has now happened in the Czech Republic. The hope that Macron and Merkel could push forward a strong integrationist agenda have faded somewhat as the German liberal party (and possibly the German Supreme Court) fight against common budgets and fiscal transfers.

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