On June 27, 2015 the Italian government enacted the law decree no. 83 (the “New Decree”) that, among others, includes material changes to the Italian bankruptcy law (Royal Decree 267/1942, the “IBL”). The New Decree must be converted into law by the Parliament within 60 days from its enactment (i.e. by August 26, 2015) but some of its provisions are already effective.

The changes affect in particular the in-court restructuring proceedings (concordato preventivo) and the semi in-court restructuring proceedings under article 182bis of the IBL (the “182bis Proceedings”) and aim at facilitating restructurings by (i) granting more powers to creditors and (ii) eliminating the so called hold-out creditors.

This newsletter sets out briefly the main changes to such proceedings (the other changes to the IBL introduced by the New Decree will be addressed in a separate newsletter).