rehabilitation,
presumption of need for rehabilitation,
presumption of liquidation,
discovery of rehabilitation,
rebuttal of presumption,
consolidation of presumption
Abstract
This article examines the key issues concerning opening rehabilitation procedures in the French legal system. The author examines the presumptions for consolidating or rebutting the need for procedures aimed at the debtor’s welfare. The rehabilitation procedure has economicand legal aspects, which are interconnected. The first comes down to the fact that the rehabilitative procedure depends on the structure of the debtor’s assets and capital. The legal ground is the presumption of the need for a rehabilitation procedure. Usually, the economic criterion consists of simple rules guiding the judge: businesses that participate in soft or hard oligopoly markets cannot be liquidated immediately because they would cause significant harm to the economy (except in declining economic sectors); representatives of markets with monopolistic competition do not generally affect a large number of people and do not make significant superprofits, so their liquidation would not cause considerable harm to the economy. The presumption of the need for rehabilitation is rebutted byprocedural means of proof. Creditors must provide evidence that payments have been suspended on their claims and that the financial statements show the structure of assets and liabilities of the debtor’s property can be considered insolvent.
