By Andrea Zorzi (University of Florence)
On January 12, 2019, a new ‘Code of enterprise crisis and of insolvency’ was adopted in Italy.
The qualifying aspect of the new law is its emphasis on early intervention. The early warning system is based on enhanced internal monitoring and a ‘duty to scream’ imposed on public creditors, if the company is delinquent on VAT or social security contributions. All business entities must set up adequate ‘organisational, management and accounting’ systems that allow early detection of a crisis and timely dealing with it. The law also creates a public office that should help debtors to find an agreement with creditors or induce them to file for a proper reorganisation procedure.
There are incentives for debtors and directors who tackle the crisis early (and for auditors who take the appropriate steps). On the other hand, undue delay is addressed in various ways. Among them, a new presumption regarding the quantification of damages in case of directors’ trading after the moment when the company is deemed dissolved, that will make it easier for trustees to hold directors liable.
The reform also brings in updates on international jurisdiction, now entirely based on centre of main interest (COMI) (however, there is no general cooperation obligation with regard to cross-border insolvency), and a comprehensive set of rules on group crisis (seemingly compliant with the UNCITRAL principles).
Finally, the law makes relevant changes regarding two of the three available restructuring instruments, while there is nothing new with regard to the very peculiar reading of the absolute priority rule (APR) according to Italian insolvency law.
The law broadens the scope of the cramming down on dissenting creditors (subject to a 75% supermajority in the relevant class) in out-of-court, but court-confirmed debt restructuring agreements: once restricted to financial creditors only, they are now available with respect to all creditors. The confirmation of the plan, which envisages only intra-class cram down, is possible irrespective of compliance with any priority rule (absolute or relative), with the only backstop of a ‘best-interest test’, now based on a comparison with a liquidation scenario. This makes the Italian ‘scheme of arrangement’ a very flexible and effective tool (confirmation rates are also very high, in practice).
Regarding judicial composition with creditors (concordato preventivo), the law confirms the controversial requirement (introduced in 2015) that a minimum 20% payment of unsecured creditors is ensured when a liquidation plan is proposed, and adds the requirement of some form of ‘external’ financial input. By contrast, there is no such a threshold when the business is due to continue under the plan: however, ‘business continuation’ is now defined more narrowly than in the past – it is such only if creditors are paid mainly out of proceeds of the ongoing business, rather than from asset sales, or, under a statutory definition, if the continued business employs at least one-half of the previous workforce. This requirement may exceedingly restrict access to reorganisation or transfer wealth from creditors to employees.
As mentioned, the APR conundrum – the matter is domain of case law – is not solved by the new law. While the discussion regarding APR among creditors is confined mainly to what constitutes ‘new value’ (thus evading the APR waterfall), APR still seems not to apply to equity holders, in case of business continuation.
Finally, the new law introduces very minor tweaks to ‘plain’ insolvent liquidation proceedings, solving some interpretive issues but without an innovative approach, and makes the ‘certified reorganisation plan’, an out-of-court restructuring framework, somewhat more stable in case things don’t work out and the debtor ends up insolvent.
Certain new measures are already in force, but the whole new Code will come into force on 15 August 2020. It should be noted that the new law fully applies – as the law it supersedes – only to enterprises with less than 200 employees. Enterprises exceeding that threshold are deemed ‘large’ and, while being able to access ordinary restructuring tools, if insolvent they are subject to ‘extraordinary administration’, a special going-concern liquidation regime that provides for broad discretion for governmental authorities and the pursuit of business continuity even at the expenses of creditors’ rights.
The paper offers a comprehensive review of the main features of the new law, setting it in the context of the current Italian insolvency law framework.
The full article is available here.
For previous Roundtable posts on Relative and Absolute Priority Default Rules in EU, see Jonathan Seymour and Steven L. Schwarcz, Corporate Restructuring under Relative and Absolute Priority Default Rules: A Comparative Assessment.