The Puzzle of the New European COMI Rules: Rethinking COMI in the Age of Multinational, Digital and Glocal Enterprises

This paper deals with the new rules on the debtor’s ‘centre of main interests’ (COMI) laid down by EU Regulation 2015/848 (Recast). This paper argues: first, that the new COMI rules contain logical and teleological flaws; secondly, that the prerequisite that the COMI ‘shall be the place […] which is ascertainable by third parties’ is a duplicate of the prerequisite ‘on a regular basis’; thirdly, that the ‘ascertainability’ prerequisite could even prove to be problematic when insolvency occurs within an enterprise that is multinational in nature; and/or conducts its relationships with suppliers and customers through digital networks; and/or deals with a business having glocal considerations. Consequently, this paper puts forward a proposal for a better regulation that would aim both at fixing the regulatory flaws and at addressing more efficiently insolvencies within multinational, digital and glocal enterprises.