As not all visitors of the English section of this internet presence are native speakers of English, some of them may not be familiar with the use of "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun.
When "they" is used as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun, it replaces gendered pronouns (he/she, him/her, his/hers) with they/them/their when the subject's gender is unknown, unspecified, or non-binary.
It uses plural verb forms (e.g., "they are" or "they have") although it is referring to only one person.
When "they" is used as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun, it replaces gendered pronouns (he/she, him/her, his/hers) with they/them/their when the subject's gender is unknown, unspecified, or non-binary.
It uses plural verb forms (e.g., "they are" or "they have") although it is referring to only one person.
Purpose
The purpose of this internet presence is to be a platform for information on basic aspects of insolvency proceedings which affect either assets of one debtor in more than one country, or members of international groups of companies located in different countries, hereinafter referred to as "cross-border proceedings".
Introductory Comments
If you want to get familiar with this area of law, this website and the links included on it should be helpful for you.
Those visitors of this website who can contribute additional information, are invited to send their contributions to me at postmaster@insolvencycourts.org.
The focus of the information provided is on
• the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency
• the European Insolvency Regulation
• the insolvency laws of the US, Portugal, and Germany.
Legal and Language-related Challenges
Cross-border proceedings can be quite challenging for all parties involved, above all the judges and insolvency representatives.
They may have to apply foreign law, decide whether to recognize foreign insolvency proceedings, interact with foreign courts, insolvency representatives, and creditors.
When all countries in which assets are located have similar legal systems and share the same language (e.g., all common-law countries, Portugal and Brazil, Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland, Spain and Spanish speaking Latin American countries, etc.), communications between the courts and officeholders of the involved countries are easier than when this is not the case.
I have been present in a courtroom of the US Bankruptcy Court of Delaware during a joint hearing between that bankruptcy court and the Canadian Ontario Superior Court of Justice in the Nortel proceedings.
The hearing itself and the pertinent court-to-court communications went very smoothly.
I wonder, however, how things would have worked out if the US Bankruptcy Court had had to communicate with a court from a non-common law jurisdiction the official language of which is not English.
In 2024, I accidentally found information on a Portuguese/German cross-border case (INAPA Group).
Just like the Nortel proceedings, the proceedings in Portugal and Germany against different enterprises of the INAPA Group were administered as independent parallel proceedings.
As far as I could find out, there were no communications between courts and/or insolvency representatives in terms of Articles 56 and 57 of the European Insolvency Regulation.
The three German subsidiaries were sold to one investor which continued to run their business operations under a new name. The Portuguese parent company was liquidated and its assets sold piecemeal to different buyers.
Cooperation Issues
My own research of cross-border cases found actual cases of cross-border cooperation between courts and between insolvency representatives from different common-law jurisdictions. However, I did not succeed in finding actual cases of cross-border cooperation between courts and/or insolvency representatives from different civil law jurisdictions.
My personal theory is that common law jurisdictions have a tradition of cooperating and communicating in cross-border cases but that no such tradition exists in civil law jurisdictions.
If you know an actual cross-border insolvency case involving different civil law jurisdictions or one common law and one civil law jurisdiction, any information about that case would be very much appreciated. Please send it to postmaster@insolvencycourts.org.