On 15 July 2022, the new Code of Corporate Crisis (CCCI) came into force, unifying, in a single body of legislation, the regulations regarding crisis and insolvency of all types of debtors (not only commercial entrepreneurs, therefore, but also consumers and other debtors so-called civil).
CCCI is the result of a long route, which began with Delegated Law No. 155 of 19 October 2017, and ended with Legislative Decree No. 83 of 17 June 2022, which transposed the contents of Directive (EU) 2019/1023 (so-called Insolvency Directive).
The regulations contained in the new Code are intended to apply to all proceedings arising after its entry into force, while for those already pending or, in any case, resulting from the conclusion of proceedings already pending as of 15 July 2022, the previous regulations will remain applicable.
In addition to the well-known abolition of the term "bankruptcy," replaced by "judicial liquidation," the CCCI introduces a number of relevant innovations in the insolvency framework, including:
a new definition of crisis, a condition identified by the inadequacy of prospective cash flows over a twelve-month period;
the introduction of a more analytical discipline in relation to the adequate warning-tools that the entrepreneur (also individual) must have put in place, in order to promptly detect the warnings of the crisis;
the provision of specific reporting obligations for so-called public creditors (Agenzia delle Entrate, INPS and INAIL) and banks, in the presence of certain warnings or changes in credit facilities;
the reorganization of crisis and insolvency regulation instruments (WURT), the definition thereof includes, in addition to the alike instruments already provided for by the previous Bankruptcy Law (reorganisation plans, restructuring agreements and moratorium), also the new restructuring plan subject to homologation (PRO), which constitutes a hybrid instrument between restructuring agreements and composition with creditors (concordato preventivo). With regard to concordato preventivo, main novelty of the latest corrective decree is the possibility - where the plan is with business continuity - to waive the absolute priority rule (APR), in favour of the more flexible relative priority rule (RPR);
the introduction of the unitary procedure for access to the SRCI, which also includes the discipline (also unitary) of the precautionary and protective measures, the maximum duration thereof may not exceed, in total, twelve months;
the new Code also incorporates the negotiated composition (composizione negoziata), the new procedure functional to the early detection of the crisis, introduced by the Law Decree No. 118 of 24 August 2021 and entered into force earlier than the CCCI.
Finally, an important novelty, from a systematic standpoint, concerns the enhancement of discharge of debts, which is extended to legal persons.
Attached herein we present a contribution to facilitate the reading of the new legislation, through a comparison of the various envisaged instruments.
