Postscript for an example of where Article 4(2)m, lex fori concursus for rules relating to the voidness, voidability or unenforceability of legal acts detrimental to all the creditors, applies without correction, see C-594/14 Kornhaas.
This post has been some time in the making, notwithstanding my promise to have it up soon. Let’s just say I got distracted.
The wide interest in Lutz, Case C-557/13, illustrates the increasing relevance of the actio pauliana in protecting creditors from their debtor’s insolvency. The core underlying issue for Lutz is that, in the absence of considerable capital in companies (arguably a direct result indeed of the regulatory competition in Member States’ corporate law following the ECJ’s case-law on freedom of establishment), civil law mechanisms have become more relevant than classic recourse to companies’ liability, relying on their capital.
If one relies on more classic modes of securitisation, one may want to have more predictability in what law will apply to those securitised agreements. That is where the Insolvency Regulation comes in, in providing for a mechanism which allows parties to choose applicable law for the relevant agreements.
Article 4(2)m of the Insolvency Regulation (in the new Regulation this is Article 7(m) – unchanged) makes the lex concursus applicable in principle: lex concursus applies to ‘(m) the rules relating to the voidness, voidability or unenforceability of legal acts detrimental to all the creditors.’ However Article 13 (16 new – unchanged) insulates a set of agreements from the pauliana: ‘Article 4(2)(m) shall not apply where the person who benefited from an act detrimental to all the creditors provides proof that: – the said act is subject to the law of a Member State other than that of the State of the opening of proceedings, and – that law does not allow any means of challenging that act in the relevant case.’
The crucial consideration in Lutz was whether the absence of means of challenge in the lex causae, relates to substantive law only, or also to procedural law. Randi summarise the time-line and relevant distinction in German and Austrian law as follows:
- “17 Mar 2008-Austrian court issues an enforceable payment order in favour of Mr Lutz against the debtor company
- 18 April 2008-debtor files application for German insolvency proceedings
- 20 May 2008-attachment of three Austrian bank accounts of the company
- 4 August 2008-German insolvency proceedings opened (as main proceedings) in respect of the company
- 17 Mar 2009-Austrian bank pays monies to Mr Lutz
Under German law, any enforcement of security over the debtor’s assets during the month preceding the lodging of the application to open proceedings is legally invalid once proceedings are opened. Under Austrian law, an action to set aside a transaction must be brought within one year after the opening of proceedings, failing which it becomes time-barred. By contrast, the limitation period under German law is three years. Although the attachment order was granted before the application to open main proceedings was filed, the actual attachment itself took place after that filing and the subsequent payment of monies by the bank took place after main proceedings were opened in Germany. Mr Lutz argued that art 13 applied and that the payment could no longer be challenged by the German liquidator under Austrian law as the one-year limitation period had expired.”
(Randi also have good review of the questions in Lutz relating to rights in rem and Article 5, triggered in the case at issue by the attachments of bank accounts).
Essentially, the Court expresses sympathy for the cover of procedural limits to fighting detrimental acts to be determined by the lex causae. (It dismissed any relevance of Article 12(1)d of Rome I Regulation, which provides that prescription and limitation of actions are governed by ‘the law applicable to a contract’: for the Insolvency Regulation is most definitely lex specialis). However leaving the matter up to the lex causae would cause differentiated application of the Insolvency Regulation across the Member States.
Consequently the ECJ opts for autonomous interpretation, ruling (at 49) that Article 13 of Regulation No 1346/2000 must be interpreted as meaning that the defence which it establishes also applies to limitation periods or other time-bars relating to actions to set aside transactions under the lex causae.’
The ECJ’s judgment essentially confirms the EFTA Court’s views on the similar proviso in Directive 2001/24 on the winding-up of credit institutions (Lbi hf v Merrill Lynch). A pity the ECJ did not refer to that finding. Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 