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Cross-border insolvency conference in Hungary March 02, 2004 The Hungarian Association of Insolvency Practitioners organised an international professional conference at the end of January together with Oppenheim and Co. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Budapest. The subject of the conference was the cross-border insolvency regulation. Approximately 130 experts, professionals and judges attended the conference. The Association invited guests from Germany and Romania too. In the morning the experts of Freshfields, Sandy Shandro, Lars Westpfahl and Hannes Nussbaumer provided thorough information about EC Regulation 1346/2000. They talked about the phrase "centre of main interest", and also about establishment, the commencement criteria of main and secondary proceedings, the requirement of co-operation between liquidators and judges and the creditors' legal relations. The lecturers also provided information about certain insolvency court decisions related to cross-border insolvency proceedings, and reviewed some challenging cross-border insolvency cases, such as Cenargo Ltd, Brac Rent-a-Car Inc, Enron Directo, Crisscross Telecommunications and Daisytek. The speakers also elaborated on the role of the USA in cross-border cases, and shared with the participants information about the use of Chapter 11 and its effects on cross-border proceedings. In the second part of the conference Ms. Andrea Csoke, an insolvency judge of the Metropolitan Court of Budapest gave a lecture about the problems related to insolvency proceedings having cross-border effects from the perspective of Hungary. Hungary will become a member of the European Union from May 2004, and from this time on the country will have to use Regulation 1346/2000. Although Hungary is not yet a full-fledged Member State of the European Union but is only awaiting accession to the EU, the legislation is already being analysed, and great attention is paid to the legal practice of the Member States, as the Regulation will have to be applied in practice in the near future in Hungary as well. However, Ms. Csoke was of the opinion that the current Hungarian Bankruptcy Act was unsuitable for using the Regulation. The Hungarian Bankruptcy Act e.g does not concern companies registered abroad. Another problem is that there are no rules for the insolvency of individuals. Therefore the Hungarian government created a committee at the end of last year to work out a new Hungarian Insolvency Act which could be suitable for handling the problems related to cross-border cases. Ms. Csoke mentioned that Hungarian judges had similar problems with the Regulation to other judges and practitioners all over Europe. The last lecturer, Mr. Norbert Csizmazia, an expert of the Hungarian Ministry of Justice talked about using Articles 5-7 of the Regulation taking into account the Hungarian Civil Law. The Hungarian Ministry of Justice is continuously harmonising the Hungarian civil law with the EU directives and regulations. The modification of the civil law will also affect the new Insolvency Act. The Hungarian Association of Insolvency Practitioners consider the conference a successful professional event. The Hungarian practitioners are looking forward to the accession of Hungary to the European Union and are ready for co-operation with foreign insolvency practitioners in cross-border insolvency cases. CIMEJES GmbH Werderstrasse 19, D-76530 Baden-Baden, Germany Tel: +49 7221 3025674 • Fax: +49 7221 28559 • news@cimejes.com |
