Increasingly, European companies and individuals are establishing businesses or acquiring economic interests beyond the borders of the country where they have their core activities. Although this provides greater opportunities, it has the potential to pose risks to the functioning of the internal market - for instance if these businesses become insolvent. Since 2000, there have been common rules in place to manage cross-border insolvency proceedings, with the aim of avoiding the transfer of assets or judicial proceedings from one EU country to another to obtain a more favourable legal position to the detriment of the general body of creditors (forum shopping). The European Commission has recently updated those rules with the adoption of the recast Insolvency Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings). This instrument, which will be effective from 26 June 2017 aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of insolvency proceedings with a cross-border dimension. On 12 March 2014 the Commission issued a Recommendation to develop new approaches to protecting the rights of creditors and to assisting businesses in financial difficulty. The current Insolvency Initiative will follow up this Recommendation and will lead to a new legislative proposal on restructuring and second chance by the end of 2016. As well as conducting public consultations, the Directorate General - Justice and Consumers commissioned this survey of businesses to explore the issues around cross border debt. Topics covered include: the proportion of companies with domestic or foreign debt in the 2015 fiscal year, the proportion of foreign debt in 2015 turnover, how easy it is to recover domestic and foreign debt, the use of judicial and non-judicial procedures to enforce unpaid debt claims, the influence of rights against foreign debtors on decisions to invest in or trade with foreign firms, potential obstacles to investing in or trading with foreign firms. The survey was carried out by TNS Political & Social network in the 28 Member States of the European Union between 15 and 24 June 2016. Some 13,128 interviews were conducted among enterprises employing one or more persons in manufacturing (NACE category C), services (NACE categories G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N) and industry (NACE categories B, D, E, F). The sample was selected from an international database, with an additional sample from local sources where necessary.
