The reforms to the Council Regulation (EC) 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings and their impact on cross-border insolvency have been well documented.  By contrast, the European Commission’s recommendation on “a new approach to business failure and insolvency” has gone relatively unnoticed. However, that recommendation could have significantly wider ramifications for insolvency and restructuring proceedings in Europe – including English restructuring law which, despite the success of the English scheme of arrangement and pre-pack administration, arguably falls short of the minimum standards proposed.
In this article, Andrew Wilkinson, Kirsty Ewer and Kate Stephenson  consider the Commission’s recommendation, market responses to it and whether the UK restructuring regime measures up to the recommendation’s minimum standards.
This article was first published in the Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law.