Reform of insolvency procedures
In the last year of the XVII legislature, the Parliament has approved the law n. 155 of 2017, which delegates the Government to carry out a broad reform of the discipline of business crises and insolvency.
This law intends to indicate the general principles common to the phenomenon of insolvency that can serve as points of reference for the various procedures with the due differentiations made necessary by the different forms in which insolvency can occur.
Alert mechanisms are set up aimed at preventing the irreversibility of corporate crises and increasingly greater relevance is given to out-of-court settlement instruments in order to favour the mediation between debtors and creditors in the management of the supervening insolvency situation.
Among the main changes introduced by the reform project, deserves particular attentionthe new position of prominence held by the bankruptcy trustee, which sees itself invested with more powers in the management of the business crisis.
The main features include enhanced access to the public administration databases, the right of the shareholders and of the social creditors to promote the legal actions and, finally, the direct management of the asset allocation between the creditors, previously entrusted to the appointed judge.
As a counter to the greater powers of the bankruptcy trustee are laid down more stringent rules on the incompatibility of the same.
In order to facilitate an assisted settlement, it is envisaged that a preventive warning phase could be activated directly by the debtor or by the court by means of a notification from public creditors. In case of voluntary procedure, the debtor will be assisted by a special body established at the Chambers of Commerce and will have 6 months to reach an agreed solution with the creditors. On the contrary, if the procedure was activated by office, the judge will immediately and confidentially convoke the debtor and entrust an expert to resolve the crisis by finding an agreement within 6 months with the creditors.
The entrepreneur who promptly activates the alert or makes use of other institutions for the agreed resolution of the crisis will enjoy reward measures. Listed companies and large companies are excluded from the alert procedure.