The area of specialisation of our team at Zimmerman Sierakowski & Partners covers cross-border bankruptcy proceedings as well. The basic precondition for invoking Regulation (EU) No 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 is for the bankrupt debtor to have their centre of main interests (COMI) in a specific Member State. For a majority of cases, COMI is either the registered office or the domicile, but other solution are not unknown to our practice either.
When a court in a Member State other than the one of an entrepreneur’s registered office decides that the centre of main interest of that entrepreneur is also located in that country, bankruptcy proceedings may be instituted and held there. In such a case, proceedings are conducted according to the law of the court’s own country, rather than the country where the entrepreneur is seated.
Such proceedings are automatically recognised all other Member States and given the status of main bankruptcy proceedings. This does not preclude creditors based in other countries from instituting secondary bankruptcy proceedings there, which nevertheless may apply only to assets located in that country. Such proceedings will be conducted according to the law of the country of their institution, and subject to limitations governing the main proceedings.
Our team has extensive experience in the field of secondary bankruptcy proceedings against Polish entrepreneurs where the main bankruptcy proceedings were instituted before a foreign court.
✓ Our lawyers have been involved in one of the first cross-border proceedings in Poland concerning a Polish company declared bankrupt before a foreign court.
✓ We advised in the matter of bankruptcy of a large white-goods producer where a Polish branch of a foreign holding company had been declared bankrupt before a court of another country.
✓ We took part in secondary bankruptcy proceedings before a Polish court against a Polish entrepreneur that had had the main proceedings instituted against them by a foreign court.
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