KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL TAKES PART IN THE SURVEY FOR UPDATING THE UNCITRAL CROSS BORDER INSOLVENCY PRACTICE GUIDE WITHIN AMERICAN BANKRUPTCY INSTITUTE

Publication date: November 04, 2024

KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL was invited to participate in a survey that contributes to UNCITRAL CROSS BORDER INSOLVENCY PRACTICE GUIDE.

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (French: Commission des Nations Unies pour le droit commercial international (CNUDCI)) is a subsidiary body of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) responsible for helping to facilitate international trade and investment.

UNCITRAL is currently working on an updated version of the 2009 UNCITRAL Cross-Border Insolvency Practice Guide. The UNCITRAL Practice Guide collects experience and practical aspects of cooperation and communication in cross-border insolvency cases and cross-border insolvency agreements. The initiative is supported by a team of approximately 25 insolvency judges, practitioners, academics, and other professionals from across the globe.

The survey aims to obtain information on the most relevant cases, practices and tools used in cross-border insolvency cooperation since 2009 to be included in an updated version of the UNCITRAL Practice Guide.

KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL, whose lawyers are active members of the American Bankruptcy Institute, provided practical input on cross border aspects of insolvency and enforcement cases handled by our law firm.

Specifically, we provided practical information on our experience in handling one of our most recent cases, namely cross border insolvency case where corporate bankruptcy petition was filed in a non-EU country and the local court issued the bankruptcy order that was to be then acknowledged by the Polish court. The challenging part was that in the period between the issuance of the judgment in another jurisdiction and the acknowledgement of the judgment in the Polish jurisdiction the debtor (not deprived of the management of the assets) disposed of a number of assets, including real properties. The question then arose what was the composition of the insolvency estate that constituted estate from which the creditors could satisfy their debts. Also, the legal problem was whether the transactions of the sale of real properties in the Polish jurisdiction before the valid acknowledgment of the foreign bankruptcy order should be classified as null and void or only defective, leading to the need of their annulment or challenging in a separate court procedure, for example by a court appointed receiver.

Another case that contributed to the survey was our current case where the bankruptcy concerned an international bitcoin platform and the enforced assets constituted crypto accounts, making the enforcement challenging, as each jurisdiction has different laws treating crypto as nonmonetary asset.

The advisory voice within UNCITRAL is not the only initiative of cooperation of our lawyers in ABI. Other activities within this organization include, for example, our latest article prepared for the periodical ABI International Committee on the topic of “Instrumental use of M&A procedures to avoid liability by debtors in Poland”: https://www.kg-legal.eu/info/kg-legal-news/the-article-of-kieltyka-gladkowski-lawyers-published-in-american-bankruptcy-institute-international-committee/

The lawyers of KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL highly value the possibility of cooperating with the specialists acting for the benefit of organizations such as UNCITRAL. In May 2023 the managing partners of our law firm visited the main headquarters of United Nations in New York.