By: Paul B. Lewis
Among the volume of material written about the Irish debt crisis and its impact over the past few years, strikingly little has been written about the ability to save a financially distressed company under Irish law and whether corporate restructuring could have mitigated some of the financial damage to Irish companies, particularly those in the property and construction industries. There is a reason for this. The number of filings under the Examinership law – the rough equivalent of Chapter 11 in the United States – remained small and relatively constant during both the recent boom and the more immediate bust periods of the Irish economy. This article examines the Irish approach to corporate restructuring and questions whether the law could have been put to good effect over the past couple of years.