A debt restructuring agreement submitted by a closed-end real estate investment fund is admissible, by virtue of the fund’s separate legal assets (autonomia patrimoniale), understood as the capacity to be the holder of substantive and procedural rights (Milan Court, 7232/2016), from which there derives, therefore, the possibility of treating the closed-end fund as an entity whose crisis can be resolved by means of a restructuring agreement.
On the basis of that principle, the trial judge held, in the case at hand, that the closed-end fund, which was in a state of crisis, could – through the asset management company (SGR) representing it – have recourse to the restructuring agreement procedure, so that the verification of the existence of the required requirements (under Article 182-bis of the Bankruptcy Law, L.F.) was carried out exclusively with regard to the fund itself.
The Court also clarified that, in view of the prohibition on recourse to insolvency proceedings – other than compulsory administrative liquidation – applicable to financial intermediaries, the restructuring agreement, not being an insolvency proceeding, is an instrument that may also be used by the SGR alone.
The text of the judgment of the Court of Milan
Leave a Reply