Clifford Chance

Eurofood Case: Clarification on location of COMI

1 May 2006

On 2nd May the European Court of Justice handed down its long awaited judgment giving answers to the questions referred to it by the Irish Supreme Court in the case of Eurofood IFSC Ltd (case C-341/04). The judgment followed the reasoning found in the Opinion of Advocate General Jacobs delivered on 27th September 2005. Together these give important guidance on how the EC Regulation 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings (EUIR) should be interpreted when considering where a company’s centre of main interest (COMI) is situate for the purposes of opening insolvency proceedings to which the EUIR applies. Determining where the COMI of a company is may be of significance to finance parties because it determines where main insolvency proceedings (those having universal application) as opposed to secondary proceedings (those applying only to assets within a particular State) can be opened.

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