Restructuring across borders: Toolkit for Belgium

Belgium's transposition of the EU Directive on Restructuring and Insolvency has introduced a materially reformed toolkit for companies facing financial difficulty. New pre-insolvency procedures are now available that were not previously part of Belgian law, and early deployments are already offering insight into how these tools perform in practice. For creditors and advisers working with Belgian entities, the change is significant. 

Christopher Poel, senior knowledge lawyer at A&O Shearman, is joined by Bart De Bock, Julien Hislaire, and Esther Maes to examine how Belgium has implemented the EU Directive and what it has added to the Belgian restructuring landscape. The discussion covers the types of pre-insolvency rescue and compromise proceedings now available to Belgian debtors, how they differ from what existed before, and the most instructive recent examples of where companies have used the newly available options to restructure. What are the key conditions for accessing each procedure? How do Belgian courts and creditors approach the confirmation of restructuring plans? And what does the emerging case experience tell us about the practical strengths and limitations of the new framework? 

Restructuring advisers, creditors to Belgian entities, and in-house counsel tracking the implementation of the EU Restructuring Directive across Europe will leave this episode with a practical grounding in how the new Belgian framework operates and where the most significant opportunities and challenges lie. 

Restructuring Across Borders maps the restructuring and insolvency landscape across more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide, drawing on the expertise of A&O Shearman's global restructuring group and its partner law firms. Each episode examines the pre-insolvency tools, court-supervised procedures, and emerging developments in a specific jurisdiction, with a focus on the practical implications for debtors, creditors, and cross-border advisers. The series accompanies A&O Shearman's Restructuring Across Borders Toolkit, a free reference resource available at aoshearman.com.