The importance of improving coordination in the management of insolvency within business groups is widely recognized. The awareness of the high costs associated with inefficient resolution of group crises, especially when groups have cross-border ramifications and coordination is more difficult has increased in the wake of the financial crisis. This has induced policy makers and international institutions to investigate what reforms are needed to ensure that the benefits of the group structure are not frustrated upon occurrence of insolvency.
The treatment of group insolvencies is particularly relevant in the banking sector and is in the agenda of banking regulators both at the international and European level. We believe that a comparative discussion on the main issues at stake among experts coming from different legal environments may provide useful elements also to improve the debate on how to deal with banking groups' crises.
On 11 June 2010 Banca d'Italia organized an international seminar on insolvency of cross-border groups at its premises in Rome. The aim of the seminar was to discuss and raise awareness of the current debate taking place both at the EU and International level on the treatment of enterprise groups in insolvency. Taking into account the Uncitral draft recommendations on the "Treatment of enterprise groups in insolvency" (which were approved the following 21 July and adopted as part three of the Legislative Guide on Insolvency), and the recent developments in the application of EC Regulation n. 1346/2000, the seminar intended to open-up a dialogue among European experts on the need for, and envisaged features of, a coordinated framework for the management of distressed multinational groups.
We present here the contributions delivered by the Seminar participants. The participants were lawyers, bankers and university professors who, in their different capacities, are involved in the study of bankruptcy issues. Some of them had also taken an active role in the drafting of the Uncitral recommendations, as members of State delegations within Uncitral Group V.
