One of the many topics on the European Commission’s present restructuring and insolvency agenda is the revision of the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR 2015), as I detailed in January 2026 blog, see https://bobwessels.nl/blog/2026-01-26-eu-restructuring-insolvency-what-awaits-us-in-2026/.
The regulation was adopted in 2015 and entered into force in 2017. It stipulates that new proposals will be made in the summer of 2027, if necessary. Because the regulation guarantees that national insolvency proceedings have external legal effect in all member states, except for Denmark, it is crucial to clearly define such insolvency proceedings that qualify for that effect.
To satisfy this requirement, the EIR 2015 contains a long and rather complex definition for “public collective proceedings”. Since member states implemented the Preventive Restructuring Directive 2019/1023, it also covers preventive restructuring proceedings (restructuring plans). These national transpositions took place in all member states during the years until 2025. The insertion of the term “public” before “collective proceedings” in Article 1(1) EIR 2015 signals an intention to distinguish public proceedings covered by the regulation from more confidential, private driven restructuring mechanisms.
But the practical meaning of “public collective proceedings” remains uncertain. It is unclear whether a restructuring process in which a plan is negotiated, voted upon, and approved by a majority of affected creditors and shareholders qualifies as “public”. While the requirement of collectivity does not imply that all creditors must be involved, uncertainty arises if only part of the creditor body is engaged or where the involvement of “a significant part of the creditors to whom the debtor owes all or a substantial proportion of its outstanding debts” is in question.
A practical approach to solve uncertainty is Annex A. Article 2(4) EIR 2015 says; “insolvency proceedings” means the proceedings listed in Annex A to the EIR 2015, which enumerates the national insolvency proceedings of member states that fall within the scope of the regulation. Once a national procedure is listed by a member state, the EIR 2015 applies automatically, without further examination by an independent institution or by courts in other member states as to whether the substantive conditions of Article 1 are indeed satisfied. Annex A is both exclusive and decisive: listed proceedings benefit from automatic recognition across the EU, while unlisted procedures are excluded regardless of their functional suitability. As of November 2025, Annex A lists 138 national insolvency proceedings, designated under a wide variety of national names and languages. See https://bobwessels.nl/blog/2025-09-doc1-lost-in-translation-annex-a-of-the-european-insolvency-regulation/.
The next query is whether an “insolvency proceeding” in a national context is automatically an insolvency proceeding for the purposes of Article 2(4) EIR 2015. In case a proceeding indeed is listed on Annex A, it is possible that the national procedural action these proceedings provide will not be regarded as “insolvency proceedings”.
In a 2020 case, a Dutch first instance court decided that a schuldsanering natuurlijke personen (i.e. debt restructuring for natural persons) proceeding under Article 287a of the Netherlands Bankruptcy Act (dwangakkoord or compulsory composition), which is a relief-measure within the listed proceedings, was not an insolvency proceeding. The court concluded: “After all, there is no question of a procedure aimed at the applicants losing (part of) the management and disposal of their assets, the requested compulsory composition is intended to prevent that situation. Nor is there a temporary suspension of a separate execution procedure’.
In June 2026, a Dutch court had to decide this question again. The defendant was established abroad. The court correctly indicated that it must be assessed whether the it had jurisdiction to hear the request, and if so, which law applied. It established that the “compulsory composition”, as set out in Article 287a of the Netherlands Bankruptcy Act (NBA), is not a procedure “intended to cause the applicant to (partially) lose the management and disposal of his assets.”
Although the “schuldsanering natuurlijke personen” is mentioned in Annex A, the court considered that an application under Article 287a of the NBA does not fall within the description of Article 1 of the EIR 2015: “The compulsory debt arrangement specifically aims to prevent statutory debt restructuring.” In the court’s opinion, the requested compulsory composition qualified as a civil or commercial matter. The court applied the Brussels Ibis Regulation (Regulation 2012/1215), which I will leave out of further consideration here.
What appears to a third party as an insolvency procedure (regulated in the system of a national bankruptcy law) is ultimately not one. Is it the member state’s responsibility to make this clearer?
In the same month, Annex A was relevant in another Dutch case. Two Dutch companies launched claims for payment of outstanding invoices for work performed by them for an Italian contractor, Rizzani, who disputed the claims. The latter relied primarily on rulings by the Italian court in Trieste in a concordato preventive proceeding, arguing a cooling-off period (moratorium) applied in its favour, prohibiting creditors from taking or continuing enforcement or encumbering measures against its assets. Separate from this, the Italian contractor also disputed the claims on the merits. A tangle of claims and counterclaims, cost issues, and attachments enfolded.
After an initial hearing, Rizzani submitted an order dated 12 February 2026 from the Italian court with accompanying protective measures, including a prohibition on the continuation of conservatory measures. Rizanni argued that concordato preventive proceedings are listed in Annex A, meaning the protective measures in the order should be automatically recognised in the Netherlands .
My concern is the Dutch court’s remark: “This is, however, separate from the question whether the Concordato preventive procedure, or at least the orders resulting therefrom, were valid in the Netherlands, given that that procedure is not referred to in Annex A of the Insolvency Regulation ((EU) 2015/848)”.
The procedure indeed may not be found in Annex A of the EIR 2015, in which the Annex is part of the text of the EIR 2015 itself. It is certain, however, that the concordato preventive appears in the Annex A that has been revised as of November 2025. Did the court overlook this? Does the EU pay sufficient attention to the fact that such an important regulation (with the revised Annex A) must be made unambiguously clear in all member states?
Two recent rulings by courts of first instance in just one member state. I am not aware of any research into such rulings from other member states but my objections and ambiguities previously raised on numerous points (see the mentioned Europe columns) are only underscored by these two rulings. The European Commission should, in principle, revise this flawed system for achieving effect of national insolvency and restructuring proceedings in other member states.
References
District Court Noord-Holland 25 May 2020, ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2020:3506.
High Court 9 November 2020 [2020] EWCA Civ 1469 (HH Aluminium & Building Products Ltd & Anor v Bell & Anor (Rev 1)).
District Court Rotterdam 3 June 2026, ECLI:NL:RBROT:2026:6431 (RSG Groep B.V v. Socieà per azioni Rizanni de Eccher S.P.A.)
District Court Limburg 9 June 2026, ECLI:NL:RBLIM:2026:5887 (ASN Bank v. ING Belgium)
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 August 19, 2026. See www.globalrestructuringreview.com.