Ad-hoc agent

If you find that your company is unable to pay the debts, our lawyers and specialists will offer a viable solution to avoid insolvency proceedings: the ad-hoc agent.

A confidential procedure, triggered at the request of the debtor, by an ad-hoc agent, appointed by the court, negotiating with creditors in order to achieve an agreement between one or more of them and the debtor having as purpose to overcome the difficult state of the company of the latter.

The advantages of the procedure are that the ad-hoc agent is a specialist, independent of parties, with professional integrity who, in most cases, obtains from your creditors the concessions that you have not ever be obtained.

Therefore, the main feature of this procedure is confidentiality, meaning that the parties are prohibited from disclosing under any form any information on the procedure.

This feature represents the main advantage of the procedure: the competitors, customers, other participants from the relevant market in which your company operates will not know the progress of this procedure.

If the creditors or agents / their named representatives breach the confidentiality obligation, they may be required to pay damages under the rules of the common law.

Although the procedure is not mandatory for creditors, however they will have to start the negotiations with the representative, because otherwise they are risking the opening of the insolvency procedure in which case their negotiation margin shall be significantly diminished.

The procedure shall take place at the Law Court in whose jurisdiction your company has its registered office.

The beginning of the procedure involves the submission of a claim to the competent law court, requesting the appointment of an ad-hoc agent. The claim must be duly motivated, in relation with the causes that determine the difficult situation of the company, requiring the appointment of the agent.

If the court finds that the claim is thorough and requires the appointment of the agent and the agent meets the legal conditions, then it shall be approved by final order.

The term of the ad-hoc assignment shall be of maximum 90 days, during which the agent may propose and obtain: the cancellation of debts, rescheduling or partial cuts, continuation or termination of contracts, downsizing etc.

Although the agent is independent of the parties, its efforts shall materialize in getting some favorable results for your company, in order to avoid insolvency.

The ad-hoc mandate shall cease, according to Law. 85/2014, in these three cases: 

  • unilateral withdrawal of the mandate by the debtor or by the ad-hoc agent;
  • by reaching an understanding (agreement) on the way of overcoming the difficult financial state of the debtor, understanding which shall be anyway the objective established by law for the ad-hoc agent;
  • at the end of the period of 90 days, during which the agent should have reached an understanding with its creditors, without this agreement to be entered.

Upon the debtor or ad-hoc agent’s request, the President of the Law Court shall find the termination of the ad-hoc assignment, by final order.