Preventive restructuring
Confidentiality and flexibility to serve restructuring
HELP FROM AN INDEPENDANT NEGOCIATOR
The mandates of ad hoc representatives or conciliators are confidential procedures in which we assist companies in their negotiations with their main creditors, with a view to ensuring the continuity of the business. These procedures for the prevention of difficulties have proven their effectiveness for many years, with a success rate in two out of three cases.
In his role as an ad hoc representative or conciliator, the administrator is neutral and independent. He is a negotiator who brings together common and conflicting interests. The procedure is opened at the request of the company director by the President of the competent court, to whom the name of the agent and the fee agreement concluded with him will be communicated.
This request is always preceded by an interview, traditionally free of charge, during which we get to know each other, establish a diagnosis of the situation together and decide on the strategy to be implemented.
CONSULTING & ADVISORY
In accordance with the law, our firm is authorised to carry out consulting and advisory activities in our areas of expertise.
We thus receive, in complete confidentiality, company directors and their advisers who are wondering about the best strategy to implement when one of the procedures of the safeguard law is envisaged: ad hoc mandate, conciliation, safeguard or judicial recovery.
We have also assisted multinational groups in the amicable sale of non profitable subsidiaries.
We have also been called upon to give opinions on French insolvency practice in the context of international litigation.
SAFEGUARD
Giving its name to the French safeguard law of 26 July 2005, this procedure is open to companies that are not in suspension of payments, but are experiencing difficulties that are likely to jeopardise them.
This is a preventive procedure that gives the manager more room to maneuver.
It is open to companies that are able to anticipate the difficulties they will face in the future and to refer to the court in time. It ends with a safeguard / Restructuring plan. As in the case of the ad hoc mandate and conciliation, the company director can propose the name of a judicial administrator to the court to be appointed to assist him.
REORGANISATION PROCEDURE
Judicial reorganization provides solutions for the company in more than a third of cases, all sizes included, and in half of the cases for companies with a turnover of more than 5 M€ (source Altares – Deloitte).
The opening of the procedure entails, as in safeguard, the automatic Stay of all debts previously incurred. The six-month observation period, renewable once, and exceptionally again at the request of the Public Prosecutor, gives the company the respite it needs to restructure and become profitable again.
The procedure leads to the adoption of a recovery / reorganisation plan, when profitability and/or debt renegotiation allow the company to pay off its debts over a maximum period of ten years, or to a decision to sell all or part of the company’s activities as a going concern in order to ensure that it is maintained, that jobs are maintained and that its liabilities are paid off to the best extend.
The administrator’s mission is to assist the company in its management and in the development of its plan.
Mediation
Whether amicable or judicial, national or international, our partners have developed a know-how in the practice of mediation, close to the negotiation in ad hoc mandate or conciliation, but in circumstances that do not necessarily imply vital economic difficulties for the company, on the occasion of a dispute that has arisen or is about to arise and for which the parties want to give themselves the opportunity to resolve it without trial.
Interim Administration
Companies sometimes encounter a temporary governance difficulty, even though the activity is otherwise normal: death of the director, conflict between partners, non-replacement of a resignation… At the request of the most diligent party, the court can then appoint a provisional administrator, in charge of administering the company and, more often than not, of finding a solution to the difficulty that motivated its appointment.
Escrow & Ad hoc mandates
Our firm is authorized to accept other mandates: private or judicial escrow the ad hoc Mandate of representation of a defaulting party in a lawsuit.
