German companies “go UK” – for insolvency proceedings

By: Carsten Lexa, LL.M.

During the last several months, some German midsize companies have turn to the UK to undergo insolvency proceedings. They seem to be quiet happy with their decision and, more importantly, they were successful: Today, companies like DNick Holding (formerly Deutsche Nickel AG) or Schefenacker (today separated into the two independent companies odelo and Visioncorp) prosper and even pay out dividends. Utilizing UK insolvency proceedings was made possible by the European Insolveny Regulation. It states that if insolvency proceedings are being commenced in one EU country, it cannot be commenced in another EU country.

Although Germany has very sophisticated insolvency proceedings, there must be reasons why German companies want to “go UK” for applying UK insolvency proceedings. And there are a few:

First, the proceedings in the UK are far more flexible than and they don´t take as long as in Germany. Very often, in the UK three months into the proceedings it becomes clear whether a company can be saved or not. In Germany, very often after three months one has just received the court order of the disclosure of the proceedings.

Second, there is one very special instrument of the UK insolvency proceedings that German companies are interested in: the “Dept for Equity Swap”. With this instrument, dept can be changed into equity by majority vote: New share capital can be made from dept. And the required majority in the UK is only 75% of the attendant share capital. Therefore, major shareholders can force the creditors to become shareholders (Germany also has provisions for “Dept to Equity Swaps; but the German provisions require the dept claim to be of certain value, meaning that there must be a good chance that the claims can be honored by the company – something that is rarely the case for a company in danger of becoming insolvent). Turning dept into equity is very often an important requirement for the financial recovery of a company.

But needless to say, not every company can exert UK insolvency proceedings. According to article 3 of the European Insolvency Regulation, the law regarding  insolvency proceedings of that state apply, in which the company has its “Comi”, its “Center of Main Interest”. According to the German version of the Regulation, this is the place where the company “usually pursues the administration of its interests” – a very elastic term. That does not mean that each an every employee must be relocated to, in this case, the UK. But having only a mailbox in a city somewhere in the UK is clearly not enough. And it is not sufficient only to  transform a German company into a UK private company limited by shares but continue the business in Germany without modifications.

Therefore, if a company wants to “go UK”, it should consider the costs for the relocation of the place of residence and for the reorganisation of the administration. These costs must be weighted against the advantages of the UK insolvency proceedings. It should be clear that the decision of whether to “go UK” or not should be made with the help of competent advisors.

For inquiries please contact the author: kontakt@kanzlei-lexa.de

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2 Replies to “German companies “go UK” – for insolvency proceedings”

  1. Ainsley Brown

    Great post but I have obe question…could you expand on administration of interest…Yes it is as you say an elstic term but how doe sone meet the standard

    thank you

  2. Carsten Lexa

    Ainsley, your question is not easy to answer. “Administration of interest” basically means the handling of everything that is important for the company – I know this does not help very much, because this could be any place. Important is that the place where the main decisions concerning the administration of the company are being made is in the UK (if you want to apply UK insolvency proceedings). It does not mean that you have to relocate the complete business administration to the UK – in the end, the courts decide whether the UK insolvency proceedings will apply or not, and they will base their decision on the facts of each indicidual case.

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