Portugal: Recent amendments to the Portuguese preinsolvency framework in the light of the European Commission’s Recommendation on a new approach to business failure and insolvency

The Decree-law No. 26/2015 of 6 February, 2015 entered into force on 3 March 2015. The new legislation is of great relevance to the Portuguese insolvency law, or rather to the Portuguese pre-insolvency framework. It amends one provision of the Portuguese Insolvency Act concerning the special revitalisation proceedings (processo especial de revitalização, best known as PER), and a number of provisions of the Decree-law No.178/2012 of 3 August 2012, which regulates the out-of-court restructuring proceedings (sistema de recuperação por via extrajudicial, also known as SIREVE). Both kinds of proceedings were designed to enable companies in difficulty to restructure at an early stage with a view to preventing their insolvency, the core distinction between them being that the PER are hybrid proceedings, hence involving a certain degree of judicial intervention, while the SIREVE are strictly out-of-court.