Group concerns and communication and cooperation between practitioners under the European Insolvency Regulation (Part I)

In this article, the author examines with a specific focus on the Insolvency Practitioner to what extent the Recast European Insolvency Regulation's provisions on communication, cooperation and coordination between the main actors in group companies' insolvency proceedings allow for efficient restructurings of those group companies. In doing so, the author will, at points, compare the provisions in Chapter V of the Recast European Insolvency Regulation to—and draw inspiration from—the German provisions on groups of companies that were adopted into the German Insolvency Act (Insolvenzordnung) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law's Model Law on Enterprise Group Insolvency. The author also aims to outline, among other things, the various forms of (cross-border) communication, cooperation and coordination that the Recast European Insolvency Regulation obligates insolvency practitioners of groups of companies to engage in, how they should implement those forms of ‘CoCo’ and what would happen if they fail to comply with those obligations. This article is Part I of a diptych on this topic, Part II of which will be published in a subsequent issue of this journal.