Publication of book on Rescue of Business in Europe
Oxford University Press has published the edited volume based on the European Law Institute's (ELI) project 'Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law'. The project ran from 2013 to 2017 under the auspices of the ELI and was conducted by Bob Wessels and Stephan Madaus, who were assisted by Gert-Jan Boon.
Furthering European Business Rescue Laws
The study sought to design (elements of) a legal framework that will enable the further development of coherent and functional rules for business rescue in Europe. This includes certain statutory procedures that could better enable parties to negotiate solutions where a business becomes financially distressed. Such a framework also includes rules to determine in which procedures and under which conditions an enforceable solution can be imposed upon creditors and other stakeholders despite their lack of consent. The project had a broad scope, and extended to consider frameworks that can be used by (non-financial) businesses out of court, and in a pre-insolvency context.
The results of the project included an instrument and national inventory and normative reports, as well as an international inventory report on recommendations from standard-setting organisations. This presented in this OUP Publication ‘Rescue of Business in Europe’. It will provide a full overview of the work prepared in the course of the project in some 1,500 pages.
Part I: Instrument on Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law
The result of the project is an Instrument on Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law (Instrument) as unanimously approved by the ELI Council and ELI General Assembly. The Instrument has ten Chapters that contain recommendations on a variety of themes affected by the rescue of financially distressed businesses. In total, the Instrument consists of some 115 recommendations.
The topics addressed in the Instrument are intended to present a tool for better regulation in the EU, developed in the spirit of providing a coherent, dynamic, flexible and responsive European legislative framework for business rescue. Mindful of the European Commission’s commitment to better legal drafting, the Instrument’s proposals are formulated as comprehensibly, clearly, and as consistently as possible. Still, the recommendations are not designed to be overly prescriptive of specific outcomes, given the need for commercial flexibility and in recognition of the fact that parties will bargain in the ‘shadow of insolvency law’.
Part II: National/international reports
In addition to the Instrument, the book will also include national/international inventory reports and normative reports. The national reports sketch the legal landscape in 13 EU Member States, it includes Austria, Belgium, England and Wales, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden. For The Netherlands, Prof. Reinout Vriesendorp and Rick van Dommelen acted as national correspondents. In addition, this part comprises an inventory report by Gert-Jan Boon on international recommendations from standard-setting organisations for business rescue.
For further information, see:
European Law Institute (ed. Part I) and Bob Wessels, Stephan Madaus & Gert-Jan Boon (ed. Part II), ‘Rescue of Business in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020, p. 355-1330 (also available here).