Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of
20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings (recast) [2015] OJ L141/19 entered into force on 26 June 2015, and will apply to insolvency proceedings from 26 June
2017.
The main changes from the European Insolvency Regulation (Regulation (EC)
No 1346/2000) are as follows:
– Codification of how the centre of main interests (the “COMI”) is determined. There
will be a rebuttable presumption that the COMI is at the registered office, but this will not apply if there has been a move of the registered office during the three months prior to the opening of proceedings.
– Coverage of hybrid and pre-insolvency proceedings. UK schemes of arrangement are
excluded from the Regulation.
– A framework for group insolvency proceedings, where two or more companies in a
group of companies are insolvent, will be introduced.
– Secondary proceedings are no longer limited to liquidation proceedings where a
company has an establishment. “Establishment” is now defined as “any place of operations where the debtor carries out a non-transitory economic activity with human means and assets”. The relevant time for assessing an establishment will be either the time of the opening of the secondary proceedings or, alternatively, the three month period prior to that. The insolvency practitioner in the main proceedings may now provide undertake to treat local creditors as they would be treated under secondary proceedings.
– New linked registers of insolvency proceedings will be established in each member state by 26 June 2018, to be linked via a central European e-justice portal by 26 June 2019.