Important changes to Italian bankruptcy law with particular respect to the composition with creditors (concordato preventivo) and restructuring agreements (accordi di ristrutturazione) have entered into force on 27 June 2015.

Art. 57 para. 6-bis TUF (introduced by Legislative Decree No. 42/2012) provides for a special procedure of judicial liquidation of investment funds in an insolvency situation, where debts cannot be satisfied in full out of the fund’s assets, but does not state whether investment funds are eligible for concordato preventivo as an alternative to liquidation.

The issues

The Court of Cassation with the decision of 28 April 2015, No. 8575 ruled that no amendment to the concordato plan orproposal, even though more favourable to the creditors, can be made by the debtor after the end of the voting process,in a case, though, where the decision could have been influenced by the fact that the debtor himself had waived its rightto confirmation of the concordato proposal.

The case

During the last few years, the section of Royal Decree No. 267 of March 16, 1942 (the "Italian Bankruptcy Law") dedicated to pre-insolvency proceedings has been reformed extensively by the Italian legislature. The purpose of the reform is to provide distressed Italian entities with a more modern and flexible insolvency law system based on private rather than judicial initiative.

Introduction

With Decree-Law 83/2015 on urgent measures concerning private law provisions, rules of civil procedure and the organisation and functioning of judicial administration in insolvency matters, Parliament has introduced major changes to the statutory provisions that govern insolvency procedures under the Insolvency Act (Royal Decree 267/1942). The changes aim to foster economic growth. In particular, they relate to bankruptcy, pre-bankruptcy agreements and debt restructuring arrangements pursuant to Article 182-bis of the Insolvency Act.

Lawmakers made a few changes to the concordato rules with the foreseeable result of restricting significantly the access by debtors to the procedure, shifting the main focus  from  liquidation  plans  to schemes allowing to preserve the business as a going concern

New rules introduced upon conversion of Art. 4 of law decree No. 83/2015

Creditors being now allowed to make competing concordato proposals restricts the exclusive powers of the debtor, which are now limited to the choice to commence the procedure, while on the other side it is now always mandatory that a competitive bid process is carried on for the sale of business units and assets, when the proposal of the debtor provides for an already designated buyer

Concordato competing proposals by creditors

According to Legislative Decree. No. 175/2014, in case of defaulting transferee / buyer, the transferor / supplier is entitled to recover the VAT originally paid to the Treasury, under the condition that the transferee / buyer - who has not paid his debt - has entered into a debt restructuring agreement with creditors pursuant to Article 182-bis of the Italian Bankruptcy Law (IBL) or into an out-of-court reorganization plans pursuant to Article 67, third paragraph, letter d) of the Italian Bankruptcy Law (IBL)

The New Provision

With a decree of 11 March 2015 the Tribunal of Reggio Emilia, recalling the case-law principle of the socalled “consecution” of insolvency procedures, rejected the pleading in the proof of debt procedure of a creditor who requested its own post-concordato debt towards the then bankrupt company to be set off against its own pre-concordato receivable.

The case

In a case where NCTM assisted the debtor, the Court of Appeals of Turin, with a decision of 17 April 2014, confirmed the most recent case law of the Court of Cassation limiting the power of the Tribunal to refuse confirmation to cases where, beyond doubt, the concordato is not economically feasible.

The case