Practical experience shows that globalisation and free movement have the result that more than sixty percent of insolvency cases involve an international (cross-border) dimension, albeit latent or concealed and hard-to-detect. Insolvency proceedings were a pillar and a political touchstone of judicial cooperation in Europe even under the legislation preceding Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council (i.e. Council Regulation /EC/ No 1346/2000). It is one of the legally and economically most important, but also most complicated areas. Moreover, Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council on insolvency proceedings applies regardless of the presence or absence of any international dimension in the respective insolvency case and application of the Regulation as a directly applicable law prevails over insolvency laws of national origin; these principles are not yet firmly rooted in public awareness. Moreover, the new EU Insolvency Regulation, now applicable to proceedings opened in or after June 2017, contains a number of substantive and procedural instruments and mechanisms unknown to Czech law and other jurisdictions. C. H. Beck Publishers have just published Professor Alexander J. Bělohlávek’s Commentary on the EU Insolvency Regulation (Evropské a mezinárodní insolvenční právo [Title in translation: European and International Insolvency Law]). The treatise anchored in the broader context of international standards applicable to insolvency proceedings is currently the most extensive commentary on the subject ever published in the European Union. Professor Bělohlávek has been actively exploring these issues for over 25 years and has also been a lecturer and consultant in many places in this country and abroad. The English edition of this Commentary is soon expected in the Netherlands and other language versions will follow.
