My focus today is on a small puzzle: interim proceedings. What are they? Do they have cross-border effect? And can we learn a bit more about them in the future?
The EU Insolvency Regulation (EIR 2015) provides in Article 1(1) that the regulation shall apply to “public collective proceedings”, to which the provision adds: “including interim proceedings”. Recital 15 shows the way by explaining that the EIR 2015 should also apply to proceedings which, under the law of some member states, are opened and conducted “… for a certain period of time on an interim or provisional basis” before a court issues an order confirming the continuation of the proceedings on a non-interim basis. The emphasis is therefore on “interim” proceedings, opened for a certain period.
The last line of recital 15 adds: “Although labelled as ‘interim’, such proceedings should meet all other requisites of this Regulation.” This means that “interim proceedings” must be public (no confidential or private proceedings, such as the French “mandataire ad hoc”) and collective. The latter word does not mean proceedings including “all” the creditors. Recital 16 provides that collective proceedings covered by the EIR 2015 should include “… all or a significant part of the creditors to whom a debtor owes all or a substantial proportion of the debtor’s outstanding debts provided that the claims of those creditors who are not involved in such proceedings remain unaffected.” Furthermore, an interim proceeding should be based on insolvency law, court‑supervised and should involve at least some divestment or control over the debtor.
Literature is very scarce. I submit that an interim proceeding is available in those member states that have listed “provisional” proceedings in Annex A, because it is not clear from the list in Annex A which proceedings are “interim”. It may be the case that the following Belgian provisional proceeding is an “interim” proceeding: “De voorlopige ontneming van het beheer, als bedoeld in artikel XX.32 van het Wetboek van economisch recht / Le dessaisissement provisoire de la gestion, visé à l’article XX.32 du Code de droit économique’”.
“Interim” proceedings may also be the proceedings overseen by insolvency practitioners listed in Annex B with “provisional” in their national official name, such as “voorlopige bewindvoerder/L’ administrateur provisoire” (for Belgium), “Vorläufiger Insolvenzverwalter” and “Vorläufiger Sachwalter” for Germany, or “provisional liquidator” for Ireland. I do not have sufficient mastery of the other 20 or so languages for the other member states…
Provisionally concluding: the key points for classification could be the label “preliminary” or “provisional”. It could, however, also be a rather substantial criterion: whether, during this interim phase, the conditions of Article 1(1) EIR 2015 are already met: public, collective, based on insolvency law, subject to court control and involving at least some restriction on the debtor’s disposal of assets. If these conditions are met, the interim phase itself is not a “proceeding” in its own right, but for the purposes of the EIR 2015 it is a substantial part of a national insolvency proceeding, listed in Annex A, and therefore enjoys the EIR 2015’s rules on international jurisdiction, recognition and cooperation from the moment it is opened.
It is expected that more clarity will soon emerge regarding these, admittedly rather mysterious, interim proceedings.
Interim proceedings are also mentioned in Directive 2026/799 on harmonising certain aspects of insolvency law, adopted at the end of March. Of all the subjects covered by this directive (harmonisation of avoidance actions, pre-packs, directors’ duties, etc.), Article 1(2) provides that Title II (on avoidance actions) does not apply to interim proceedings. I have not found a reason for this exclusion.
The interim proceeding as such only has been mentioned in Title III of the Certain Aspects Directive, regarding asset tracing. Article 15 (“Access to and searches of bank account information by designated courts and administrative authorities”) provides in paragraph 1 that member states shall ensure that the designated courts or administrative authorities have the power to access and search, directly and immediately, bank account information where the following conditions are met: (a) the insolvency practitioner appointed in ongoing insolvency proceedings, including interim proceedings, requests bank account information; and (b) the bank account information is necessary for the purpose of identifying and tracing assets belonging to the insolvency estate in proceedings as referred to in point (a), as well as assets subject to avoidance actions. Article 15(1) also covers interim proceedings.
The same is true for Article 15(2), in which it is provided that, in facilitating cross-border access, member states shall ensure that the designated courts or administrative authorities have the power to access and search, directly and immediately, bank account information in other member states available through the bank account registers interconnection system referred to in Article 16(6) of Directive (EU) 2024/1640 (BARIS) where the following conditions are met: (a) the insolvency practitioner appointed in ongoing insolvency proceedings, including interim proceedings, requests bank account information in other member states; and (b) the bank account information is necessary for the purposes of identifying and tracing assets belonging to the insolvency estate of the debtor in proceedings as referred to in point (a), as well as assets subject to avoidance actions.
While there is a little more certainty regarding “interim proceedings”, the relationship between the aforementioned exclusion in Title II (Avoidance actions) and these same actions mentioned in Article 15 seems problematic to me, and it is appropriate to consider whether the latter provision should be addressed during the 2027 review of the EIR 2015 itself – apart from including a clarification of what “interim proceedings” actually are.
In any case, there seems to be a bit more certainty on the horizon.
This is a slightly adapted version of a regular column Bob Wessels is writing for Global Restructuring Review (GRR) on the topic of cross-border restructuring and insolvency in a European context. GRR is a subscription-only publication and the column appeared in GRR on May 7, 2026. See www.globalrestructuringreview.com.