With judgment No. 20141/2026, published on June 16, 2026, the First Civil Division of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has decided the question of law whether an application for access to concordato minore (minor composition with creditors) submitted by a individual entrepreneur who has been removed from the Company Register is admissible.
The Supreme Court has stated the following principle of law: “An application for access to concordato minore submitted by an entrepreneur who has already been removed from the Company Register is, in all circumstances, inadmissible pursuant to Article 33, paragraph 4, of the Italian Code of Business Crisis and Insolvency (Codice della crisi d’impresa e dell’insolvenza – CCII), including where the applicant is a individual entrepreneur and the proposed arrangement is of a liquidation nature” (Italian Supreme Court, judgment No. 20141/2026).
Concordato minore is a voluntary procedure for the resolution of over-indebtedness, enabling debtors, subject to certain conditions and similarly to other over-indebtedness proceedings, to obtain a discharge from their pre-existing debts.
An application for access to concordato minore is inadmissible where it is “submitted by an entrepreneur who has been removed from the Company Register” (Article 33, paragraph 4, CCII).
The rationale for this exclusion, extended to concordato preventivo (composition with creditors) and debt restructuring agreements, is explained in the Explanatory Report accompanying the Italian Code of Business Crisis and Insolvency. The legislator has solved the interpretative issue that had arisen under the former Italian Bankruptcy Law concerning whether a company removed from the Company Register could access to composition with creditors or obtain court approval of a debt restructuring agreement for the sole purpose of neutralising the effects of a bankruptcy petition filed against it within one year of its removal from the Company Register.
The choice of the legislator to render inadmissible applications submitted by entrepreneurs who have been removed from the Company Register is based on the absence of the essential legal requirementfor access to composition with creditors or for the approval of a debt restructuring agreement: the existence of a individual entrepreneur of a company to be restructured from the perspective of business continuity.
On the basis of these considerations, and following a logical and interpretative analysis grounded both in the wording of the provision and in its underlying rationale, the Italian Supreme Court has stated that Article 33, paragraph 4, CCIIapplies to any entrepreneur removed from the Company Register, irrespective of whether the entrepreneur is a minor entrepreneur and regardless of the type of composition proposed, namely whether it is a liquidation plan or a business continuity plan.
According to the Court of Cassation, the provision “clearly establishes the general inadmissibility of an application for access to concordato minore submitted by an entrepreneur who has been removed from the Company Register, without drawing any distinction between individual entrepreneur and collective entities, nor between business continuity arrangements and liquidation arrangements” (Italian Supreme Court, judgment No. 20141/2026).
In summary, “according to the literal wording and to the rationale of the final paragraph of Article 33 of Italian Code of Business Crisis and Insolvency this rule applies without distinction to individual entrepreneurs and to collective entrepreneurs (namely companies) removed from the Company Register and it applies to rescind from the type of composition plans” (Italian Supreme Court, judgment No. 20141/2026).