Consensual restructuring continues to gain ground as the “go to process” for over leveraged and distressed business.

When the reforms come into force, they will supplement and complement the Recast European Union Insolvency Regulation that became effective on June 26, 2017.

Legal background

Where restructuring measures comprising collective redundancies become necessary, the employer must fulfil a number of legal requirements to successfully implement such measures. While it is sometimes tempting to implement the necessary restructuring in a way that ignores the various legal requirements (e.g. co-determination of the works council etc.), there are only exceptional situations in which such a way does not lead to a total failure of the original plan.

Auf der Zielgeraden haben Bundestag und Bundesrat die Reform der Insolvenzanfechtung verabschiedet. Durch das Gesetz, welches mit Verkündung im Bundesgesetzblatt am 04. April 2017 in Kraft getreten ist, werden die Risiken der Insolvenz für die Geschäftspartner kriselnder Unternehmen verringert. Die von der Rechtsprechung geforderten strengen Anforderungen, die Zahlungsfähigkeit der Geschäftspartner zu überprüfen, werden damit entschärft.

Der Wert der Insolvenzmasse ist Berechnungsgrundlage sowohl für die Vergütung des Insolvenzverwalters als auch die Gerichtsgebühr im Insolvenzverfahren. Obwohl die Regelungen hierzu gleich lauten, legt sie das OLG München unterschiedlich aus. Die Folge im aktuellen Fall ist eine knapp sechsfach höhere Bemessungsgrundlage zugunsten der Gerichtskasse. Die Mehrheit der Oberlandesgerichte teilt diese Sichtweise nicht. Damit begründet die Rechtsprechung des OLG München einen deutlichen Standortnachteil für Betriebsfortführungen im Insolvenzverfahren im Bezirk des Oberlandesgerichts München.

1. Background of the claw-back reform

German insolvency law allows claw-back for actions made by the debtor during a period of up to 10 years prior to insolvency proceedings. Until the new rules entered into effect in April 2017, this long look-back period also applied to so-called coverage transactions, meaning payments to which the creditor was entitled under contract or law. The insolvency administrator only needed to prove that when making the payment the debtor willfully disadvantaged its other creditors, and the recipient of the payment was aware of this.

Germany's major legal reform aiming to facilitate group insolvencies comes into effect on April 21, 2018 (full German text). The new law allows insolvency proceedings over companies within a corporate group to be concentrated at a single German insolvency court and/or to be administered by one insolvency administrator.

The German Bundestag has recently passed a new law as a result of a long running drive to reform how group insolvencies are to be dealt with in the jurisdiction. The reforms were suspended whilst the European Union formulated the Recast Insolvency Regulation, but, the German legislation has been finalised and the reforms effective from 21 April 2018.

The reform of claw-back rights in German insolvency proceedings which provides for more legal certainty for creditors has become effective on 5 April 2017.