The recent case of Thomas & another v Frogmore Real Estate Partners & others [2017] EWHC 25 (Ch) provides useful guidance for anyone analyzing the centre of main interests (“COMI”) of a company not registered in the UK or other EEA state for the purposes of assessing whether or not insolvency proceedings relating to the company can be instigated in the UK courts under the EC Regulation.
If 2016 ended with more questions than answers as to how Brexit would take shape, 2017 began with at least a little more clarity.
Background
The EU-Commission is planning a European wide pre-insolvency (preventive) restructuring procedure in order to harmonise pre-insolvency proceedings within the EU, thus strengthening the EU domestic and capital markets, bringing clarity to cross-border transactions, and preventing forum-shopping.
At the end of 2016, the European Parliament issued a proposed directive (COM (2016)723/30/EU) in this regard (Directive Proposal).
Facts
Le cas est suffisamment rare pour être souligné : la justice européenne – celle-là même qui a milité et créé le droit à l’oubli – envoie un signal fort en vue de rappeler que celui-ci n’est pas absolu. Saisie d’une question impliquant les registres publics des personnes morales, elle estime qu’il n’y a en principe pas de droit à l’oubli pour les données à caractère personnel y figurant.
Europe has been a hot bed of legislative reform in the R&I space since the GFC. This panel discussed where some of the key jurisdictions had ended up in this process, in some cases, making significant changes to allow greater flexibility of treatment and efficiencies of process. Led by Philip Hertz (Clifford Chance), Lucas Kortmann (RESOR), Angel Martin (KPMG) and Dr Leo Plank (Kirkland & Ellis) discussed processes available in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany and some impending changes.
There has been great discussion over the course of INSOL on the various restructuring and insolvency reforms being considered or implemented globally. In the break out session ‘The good, the bad and the ugly: national and regional law reforms’, panellists drilled down into the detail of some of these reforms. The panel considered reforms in the EU (Prof. Christoph Paulus, Hamboldt-Universitat zu Berlin), the UK (Mark Craggs, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP), Singapore (Sushil Nair, Drew & Napier LLC), and the US (Donald S.
The past 12-18 months have seen some of the biggest changes to established insolvency law and practice in England and Wales since the Insolvency Act 1986 and Insolvency Rules 1986 (the old Rules) came into force. These have culminated with the new Insolvency Rules 2016 (the new Rules), which become effective on 6 April 2017 and are intended to consolidate the old Rules (including all 28 subsequent sets of amendments to them).
The European Union Court of Justice ("EUCJ") has issued a judgment dated 10 November 2016 in the Matter No C-156/15 (Private Equity Insurance Group SIA ("SIA") v Swedbank AS) in response to a request for a preliminary ruling from the Supreme Court of Latvia, the country in which the bank Swedbank AS is based.
ADVISORY | DISPUTES | TRANSACTIONS Make insolvency great again February 2017 One of the great criticisms of the new President of the United States of America is that his companies filed for bankruptcy four times when he was a business mogul. In truth Donald Trump utilised various provisions of Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code to restructure his businesses. In an effort to encourage a similar level of entrepreneurial spirit, a mere 14 days after his election the EU Commission unveiled plans to adopt a pan-European regime which closely mirrors much of the US’s Chapter 11.