Path Dependence and Paradox in Harmonizing Out-of-court Procedures across Europe. The Evidence from Italy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the impact that the ‘new approach to business failure’ has had on Italian out-of-court procedures. It demonstrates that in 2005 Italian law started to embrace the rescue culture of out-of-court procedures by means of a series of reforms; initially, this movement facilitated the incorporation of the ‘new approach to business failure’, but – and this is the paradox – the more law makers and courts remove the old paradigms and introduce new ones, which in principle could make the procedures smoother, cheaper and more efficient, the more the law in the book and the law in action appear to be overloaded with additional prerequisites which make the procedures cumbersome, costly and inefficient.