European insolvency regulation: Article‐by‐Article CommentaryMoritz Brinkmann (ed) (2019, Beck‐Hart‐Nomos, Munich) 557 pp., €220, ISBN 978‐3‐406‐69858‐3

• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Paul Omar
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/iir.1383
• Date: 01 June 2020

BOOK REVIEW

European insolvency regulation: Article-by-

Article Commentary

Edited by Moritz Brinkmann (ed)

(2019, Beck-Hart-Nomos, Munich) 557 pp., €220, ISBN 978-3-406-69858-3

The cornerstone of the European insolvency framework is undoubtedly the European Insol-

vency Regulation, whose two iterations, the original text (“EIR 2000”) and the recent so-called

Recast (“Recast EIR”), have underpinned the cross-border insolvency environment for nigh on

two decades. Designed in the first instance to assist in the coordination of a number of insol-

vencies involving a single debtor, the EIR 2000 soon acquired a veneer of interpretation through

practice initiatives redefining its terms as well as expanding into the inevitable lacunae in the

text, to end up dealing with group insolvencies de facto. The experience under the EIR 2000, as

translated through the jurisprudence of European and national courts, informed the shaping of

the Recast EIR to take onboard many practice developments (e.g., virtual secondary proceed-

ings and concomitant undertakings) and some pre-existing processes developed in domestic law

(e.g., the group coordination framework).

The complexity of the Recast EIR, as compared to its predecessor, has required a new

approach to analysing and commenting on its content. Though reliant in part on many notable

works that sited the EIR 2000 within a private international law discourse, the connections now

drawn between the Recast EIR and issues of a diverse nature, including data protection and

technology (in addition to the endless intersections of insolvency law and other fields more gen-

erally visible already in the practice under the EIR 2000), now requires a new generation of

commentary to fathom its complexity. Such works have to distil the experience under both texts

and the transition between the two, carefully marking the changes intervening in 2015.

Into this gap in the literature has now stepped, from a collaboration between three major

publishing houses in Europe, this worthy addition to the literature on the Recast EIR. Hand-

somely bound in red, the work is itself also a collaboration between a team of scholars, practi-

tioners, judges and policy-makers, most of whom are well-known in European circles for their

insolvency expertise. They are led in this endeavour by the eminent Professor Moritz

Brinkmann from the University of Bonn, a specialist of long standing in insolvency and civil

law, whose 20-year career in academic law has also seen him occupy many other positions,

including that of National Coordinator (Germany) in the World Bank Community of Practice

on Insolvency and Creditors/Debtor Regimes. Usefully, the work builds on Professor

Brinkmann's own research pedigree in German and international insolvency law, as well as his

(related) interest in asset-security and collateral. Professor Brinkmann has also had ample

Received: 20 May 2019 Accepted: 20 May 2020

DOI: 10.1002/iir.1383

© 2020 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Int Insolv Rev. 2020;29:313–314. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/iir 313