I National Forum Insolvency and Bankruptcy in Ukraine. Challenges of wartime.

02/06/2023
Practices:

On June 2, the 1st National Forum on “Insolvency and Bankruptcy in Ukraine” was held. Challenges of wartime” on the initiative of the National Association of Arbitration Managers of Ukraine and with the support of the EU Project “Law-Justice”.
In addition to arbitration managers, lawyers from other branches of practice, representatives of state authorities, the banking sector, and business took part in the event.

All the participants of the forum had the opportunity to study the bankruptcy procedures and their features as tools to help businesses in matters of solvency recovery. And also heard from the speakers answers to actual questions of practice, in particular such as:
State regulation and support of the State in the conditions of martial law.
Business in conditions of war: preservation, restoration, responsibility.
Bankruptcy court procedures in wartime conditions. Actual judicial practice.
Challenges of war: functioning of the banking sector, moratoriums, sanctions and nationalization.

The session entitled “Business in conditions of war: preservation, restoration, responsibility” was moderated by Natalia Tyshchenko, a member of the Council of the Association of Arbitration Administrators, managing partner of the Nobili Law Company.

“Today, there are bankruptcy procedures that help the debtor to get out of the crisis and resume production. Now, in the conditions of war, bankruptcy is an effective tool for collecting creditors’ debts, for holding officials and owners accountable, for returning withdrawn assets. And, of course, bankruptcy for debtors is a tool for business recovery,” Nataliya Tyshchenko shared this opinion.

Opening the forum, the head of NAACU Oleksandr Bondarchuk noted that this event is a historic event, because it is the first professional event in this format.
The head of NAACU also noted the important role of arbitration managers in society and in the life of the country.

Minister of Justice Denys Malyuska called the problem of solvency urgent. In his address, he singled out three challenges that must be overcome: military, European integration and corruption.

People’s Deputy of Ukraine Oleksiy Movchan emphasized the importance of draft law 7442, which proposes amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Bankruptcy Procedures regarding the application of bankruptcy procedures during martial law. He expressed confidence that there will be no problems with the adoption of the draft law in the second reading. But society has problems with the perception of bankruptcy as a phenomenon.

Arsen Milyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Board of JSC “Oschadbank”, responsible for work with NLP, raised the topic of creating new recovery mechanisms, taking into account the challenges of today. He noted that it is important to assess each specific situation, and collecting debts during war is not the way to go.

The following were also invited guests and speakers of the event:
Denys Malyuska, Minister of Justice of Ukraine;
Mykola Lukashuk, Chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council;
Oleg Vaskovskyi, Judge of the Supreme Court;
Serhii Zhukov, Judge of the Supreme Court;
Oleksandr Banasko, Judge of the Supreme Court;
Taras Tarasenko, People’s Deputy of Ukraine. Head of the subcommittee on human rights.
Vladyslav Filatov, Director of the Bankruptcy Department of the Ministry of Justice and other representatives of the legal community.
Daniil Fedorchuk, Director of the Department for Legal Affairs of DK “Ukroboronprom”;
Lilia Timakina, Director of Legal and Land Affairs of the “Agrarian System Technologies” group of companies;
Diana Kozlovska, Managing Partner of Elite Consult Group, Arbitration Manager, Head of the Migration Law Committee of the Association of Lawyers of Ukraine.

The international experience of introducing innovations in arbitration practice was shared by Bartosz Sierakowski, Deputy Director for Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Insolvency Research (Poland), and Arne Egels, international expert of the EU Project “Pravo-Justice”, arbitration manager, lawyer (Germany).

A secret guest, an individual who went through the bankruptcy procedure and recovered his solvency, also shared his experience of the bankruptcy procedure.


During the event, a charity auction and lottery were held, thanks to which it was possible to collect more than UAH 200,000. for the purchase of equipment to help the military unit A 7392, in which arbitration managers are fighting in the east of Ukraine! Among the lots was also a Scientific and Practical Commentary to the Code of Ukraine on Bankruptcy Procedures with the signatures of all authors, kindly provided by the Nobili Law Company for the raffle. The winner and the new owner of the Scientific and Practical Commentary to KUzPB became the arbitration administrator Mykola Struts! Congratulations and thank you for your donation!

You can view the speakers’ presentations at the following link.