By Manuel Penades and Michael Schillig (King’s College London – The Dickson Poon School of Law).
With its flexible restructuring framework and experienced courts, England has become the foremost restructuring destination in Europe. A restructuring typically combines a scheme of arrangement with a pre-pack administration. Under the former, lenders exchange their debt for equity or new debt in a new corporate holding structure; the latter facilitates the transfer of the business to this new holding structure. The effectiveness of these restructuring measures in all EU Member States is currently guaranteed by the combined effect of the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR), the Judgments Regulation (Brussels Ibis), and the Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I).
This regime currently ensures the availability of English-law pre-pack administration and other insolvency procedures to many EU debtors. The EIR ties exclusive jurisdiction and applicable insolvency law to the debtor’s Centre of Main Interests (COMI). Insolvency measures issued by the opening court are automatically recognised and enforced throughout the EU. Subject to a COMI transfer to England, any debtor can benefit from English insolvency and restructuring mechanisms (including pre-pack administration) and their automatic EU-wide effect.
Post-Brexit, the EIR will cease to apply in the UK and insolvencies opened therein will lose their automatic EU effect. English domestic law alone will be insufficient to achieve this result. Only a new international instrument, probably in the form of a convention, could maintain the effectiveness of the current practice.
By contrast, schemes of arrangement are not covered by the EIR and their enforceability across the EU is currently ensured by Brussels Ibis and/or Rome I. The UK will be able to retain the Rome I regime through a unilateral instrument, but not the Brussels Ibis, which requires reciprocity, like the EIR.
Given that schemes and insolvency procedures are usually combined, absent new international instruments, Brexit is likely to result in significant uncertainty and disruption for European restructuring practice.
The article is available here.