Abstract
ERIC is an international conference jointly organized by the Faculty of Law of Charles University, Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic and the Czech National Bank for the purpose of deepening our knowledge and understanding of insolvency administration and resolution both locally and in an international context. The conference was organized under the auspices of the Presidency of the Czech Republic in the Council of the EU and was dedicated to the topic "Performance of Insolvency Administrator Activities in EU Member States". The conference was intended for professionals engaged in insolvency resolution and administration (insolvency administrators, representatives of supervisory and resolution authorities, legal scholars, practicing lawyers etc.) and was thematically divided into three sections addressing the issues in question from different perspectives.
The first section of the conference was dedicated to the regulatory and EU dimension of insolvency management, thus providing the audience with perspective on fundamental conceptual, and even constitutional questions of state supervision and insolvency regulation. Being supported by research carried out by prominent scholars and professional experience of practicing lawyers (often combined in the same person), these questions have been addressed from different points of view, with the said differences depending not only on speakers' qualified opinions, but also on jurisdictions of their origin. Should insolvency as a social concept be considered part of judiciary power, or rather a matter of governmental administration? What models of insolvency supervision seem to be more efficient given the specifics of each legal system? What is the role of political power when it comes to insolvency management? What would happen, should there be no professional regulation at all? What are the EU dimensions of insolvency administrator office performance? These and further questions found answers from the honourable speakers.
The second section of the conference was dealing with the performance of insolvency administrator's office in different EU member states, bringing a more detailed idea of what insolvency management can look like in various jurisdictions. The speakers shared their unique knowledge and engaged in moderated panel discussions regarding their viewpoints arising from either positive or negative experience with each insolvency administration and supervision model. The conclusions of this sections may further serve as valuable material for the de lege ferenda considerations.
The third section of the conference addressed the highly relevant area of banking and financial institutions' crisis and insolvency, as well as their resolution. Notable representatives of several European resolution authorities talked from their professional experience with the banking crisis management and supervision, inter alia on the basis of the recent Sberbank case. There is a common understanding that a failure of a bank is distinctly different from a failure of an industrial corporation, given mainly the very existence of the deposit insurance scheme. When banks fail, depositors have a preference in the insolvency / resolution hierarchy. After the Great Financial Crisis, a new framework has been created to address the shortcomings of the previous regime. Thus, not all banks finish their life in insolvency, and indeed, some banks are being resolved using tools and powers of the newly created resolution authorities. This panel will debate recent experience of the EU resolution authorities and try to paste real-life situations to the legal framework and its expected improvements.