Before spring even blossomed, the review of the Portuguese Insolvency Law was completed with the issuance of Law No. 7/2018 and Law No 8/2018 of 2 March 2018. The review began in 2017 with the Insolvency Act (hereafter IA) being amended by Law Decree No. 79/2017, of 30 June. The amendments may well be numerous and flashy, but do they embody a real shift of the Portuguese Insolvency Law? Let us have a look.
Law Decree No. 79/2017 amended the insolvency proceedings and, more importantly, the popular pre-insolvency hybrid proceedings known as “special revitalisation proceedings”. Standing out among the latter amendments is the inclusion, once and for all, of non-traders (natural persons and entities other than companies) in the range of beneficiaries of pre-insolvency instruments.