cities( the so-called capi dei creditori). Nowadays, creditors ' committees ¾with more or less similar features¾ are common in different legal systems: the Gläubigerausschuß in Germany, the comitato dei creditori in Italy, the creditors ' committee in the United States and the United Kingdom, the comissão de credores in Portugal, the contrôleurs in France, etc.
However, the usefulness of committees and their effectiveness in practice have also been subject to criticism. In general terms, creditors’ committees are often accused of being passive and ineffective. Indeed, the committees are often criticised for the scant use they make of their powers of investigation and supervision and for potentially delaying the progress of the procedure( if their compulsory intervention is required for certain issues). The introduction of creditors’ committees among the matters to be harmonised can thus be considered a rather risky approach.
This being said, there are two main circumstances that( if not modified in the Directive that will eventually be enacted) will turn its transposition a real challenge for the Spanish legislator.
The first one is related to the fact that, under the Proposal, the general meeting of creditors has exclusive and excluding competence to decide whether or not to set up a committee. This poses a huge problem in Spain, where the general meeting of creditors does no longer exist: said body was suppressed in 2022 in order to simplify and accelerate insolvency proceedings, under the assumption that general meetings of creditors might have made sense in old bankruptcies ¾where there was a limited number of creditors¾ but nowadays they appear to be almost impracticable in a good number of cases, even admitting telematic meetings. Moreover, the Spanish experience
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EMEA Summary
During the quarter, the EMEA regional committee continued to be active. The co-chairs, Stine Dalenhag Snertingdalen, Juanitta Calitz and Amanda Cohen, met on several occasions to share ideas on the development and activities of the committee. On 14 May all committee members met to discuss issues such as new committee members, diversity, activities to be organised and the annual congress in São Paulo. The Spanish members of the Committee also met on 1 July to define the activities to be implemented between now and the end of the year.
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