The English Court of Appeal’s decision in East-West Logistics v Melars Group (East-West Logistics Llp v Melars Group Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1419 of 28 October 2022 draw my attention, especially by the concurring view of one of the judges, Lord Justice Lewison. Lord Justice Lewison is known to me from the famous Stanford International Bank case of 2009, which… Read More »2023-01-doc1 COMI and ascertainability by third parties
In the second week of December 2022, the European Commission has put forward measures to further develop the EU’s Capital Markets Union (CMU). These measures concern three areas (a) to make EU clearing services more attractive and resilient, supporting the EU’s open strategic autonomy and preserving financial stability (b) to harmonise certain corporate insolvency rules across the EU, making them more efficient and… Read More »2022-12-doc3 Harmonisation of Corporate Insolvency Law in the EU: some background
Prior to 2017, courts in EU Member States (including UK pre-Brexit) have been rather lax and inattentive to verify a debtor’s international jurisdiction, giving room for especially individuals to manipulate COMI. Consequently, such judgments led to overstretching the public policy exception to refuse recognition. Articles 4 and 5 of the EU Insolvency Regulation aim to resolve this with a careful… Read More »2022-12-doc1 – Int’l jurisdiction under the EIR, ready for improvement
The EU (without Denmark) is an economic market, with 27 member states. All these states have their own national insolvency system. In this whole European region there are presently around 120 types of national insolvency proceeding, which is around 4.5 per member state. As examples: Belgium lists eight proceedings (in Dutch and in French), Estonia two, Ireland no less than… Read More »2022-11-doc4 Towards a review of the Dutch IP profession
The book ‘English Corporate Insolvency Law’ is, as its subtitle says, a primer. It offers an introduction and analysis guide and update readers with the recently significantly revised English corporate insolvency rules and procedures. Readers will not be disappointed as it gives a well-reasoned overview of the full system, including references to case law and literature. Contents of the book.… Read More »2022-11-doc3 English Corporate Insolvency Law. A Primer.
Recently, the second edition of ‘European Cross-Border Insolvency Law’, written by professors Reinhard Bork and Renato Mangano was published. It is an up-dated version of the first edition, published in 2016. I refer to the comparative review I published on https://bobwessels.nl/blog/2016-10-doc7-book-reviews-eir-recast/, comparing Bork/Mangano with the 2016 version on the same topic of Gabriel Moss, Ian F. Fletcher and Stuart Isaacs… Read More »2022-11-doc2 Second ed. of Bork & Mangano European Cross-border insolvency law
The case of Kooter v The Official Receiver & Ors [2022] EWHC 2683 (Ch) (24 October 2022) is a colourful case concerning the international jurisdiction of the courts in England and Wales. It is interesting reading material (i) about English procedural law and practice concerning a hearing for the annulment of a bankruptcy order from March 2019, and (ii) the… Read More »2022-11-doc1 COMI, habitual residence, England or Bulgaria?
One of the novelties in the recast European Insolvency Regulation (EIR 2015), in force since 2017, is its set of rules for data protection. Generally, the aims of most national insolvency laws and those of data protection laws are contradictory. The former are designed to facilitate access to information by creditors and courts. Data protection-rules, however, aim rather to restrict… Read More »2022-10-doc2 Privacy Codes in Insolvency and Restructuring
From a recent decision of 6 September 2022 of the District Court Amsterdam (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2022:5466) it follows that under Dutch rules a law firm (‘Houthoff’) cannot just break with Russian parties, having been placed on sanction lists by the government. The case concerns Russian state-owned company SberBank, the largest shareholder of a Croatian food group (formerly Agrokor, now: ‘Fortenova’), which is… Read More »2022-10-doc1 Saying goodbye to Russian clients: easier said than done
Recently District Court Amsterdam 26 August 2022, ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2022:5012, decided that KLM airlines is obliged to make financial restitution to passengers after a travel agency’s bankruptcy. The basis for the judgment lies in the Flight Compensation Regulation (EC) No 261/2004. Case: on 13 January 2020 Dutch passengers book tickets to Brazil and Argentina via travel organization D-Reizen for an amount of… Read More »2022-09-doc2 – Towards strengthening a consumer’s position in insolvency