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Last Monday, the new rules on cross-border insolvency proceedings, proposed by the Commission in 2012 and adopted by the EU legislators in 2015, entered into force throughout the European Union.

The Regulation focuses on resolving the conflicts of jurisdiction and laws in cross-border insolvency proceedings. It also ensures the recognition of insolvency-related judgments across the EU.

Key features of the new rules are:

• application to a wider range of national restructuring proceedings: certain modern and efficient types of national restructuring proceedings were not covered by the old set of rules, meaning that they could not be used in cross-border cases. It will now be possible to use the modern national restructuring proceedings to rescue businesses or recover money from debtors in other EU countries;

• increased legal certainty and safeguards against bankruptcy tourism: If a debtor relocates shortly before filing for insolvency, the court will have to carefully look into all circumstances of the case to see that the relocation is genuine and not to take advantage of more lenient bankruptcy rules;

• increased chances to rescue companies: the new rules avoid "secondary proceedings" (proceedings opened by courts in an EU country other than the one where the company's registered office is based);
• group insolvency proceedings: the new rules introduce framework for group insolvency proceedings;

linking insolvency registers: by the summer of 2019 there will be an EU-wide interconnection of electronic national insolvency registers.