FU³ sponsored international seminar on European insolvency law

The subject of the research seminar was the question under which conditions companies in a financial crisis can be restructured in preventive restructuring frameworks such as under the StaRUG. The EU Directive 2019/1023 and in Germany §§ 8, 9, 25 StaRUG allow companies to divide affected creditors and shareholders into groups and to vote in groups on a restructuring plan, for the adoption of which a majority per group is sufficient. The Directive and the StaRUG also allow an entire group to be outvoted (§§ 26-28 StaRUG), but the Directive gives the member states various implementation options for this. The highly controversial legal economic theory behind this cross-class cram-down mechanism was originally developed in the USA (absolute priority rule) and has now been enriched for the first time at European level by a new variant (relative priority rule).

Since these interventions can be drastic, especially for the shareholders, the speakers also dealt with the question - which is hotly disputed, especially in Germany - of whether the shareholders have to approve preventive restructuring frameworks before the management can use them.

In addition to professors from Spain, Greece, Finland and Germany, doctoral students from the department also gave presentations.