A company, finding itself in a state of insolvency, is declared bankrupt at the instance of one of its creditors.

After a few weeks, the creditor receives a court document from which it emerges that the bankrupt company challenged the judgment on the grounds that, prior to the bankruptcy petition, it had moved its headquarters abroad and therefore claimed that the declaration of bankruptcy no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the Italian court, but, if anything, was the responsibility of the foreign court. She then sought an order to pay legal costs against the creditor.

The plaintiff's claim was based on the fact that it claimed to have moved its registered office abroad one month before the filing of the bankruptcy petition. As proof, she filed a certificate of registration in the business registry of the foreign state.

The transfer had been registered in the Italian commercial register shortly before the filing of the bankruptcy petition, and the bankruptcy judgment had taken place after it had been removed from the Italian commercial register.

According to the debtor, applying Article 25(1) of Law 218/95 and Article 3 of EC Regulation No. 1346/2000, jurisdiction would fall to the court of the place where the registered office was located at the time of the application and thus to the foreign court, since the company's registration abroad had occurred before the application was filed.

The Court of Appeals of Venice, in a ruling dated 2.11.16 of which no specific precedent can be found, accepted the argument of the creditor, whom I defended, according to which - since the transfer of the registered office abroad is a complex procedure involving two different legal systems (that of the state of departure and that of destination) - the effects of the transfer of the registered office of a company abroad can be said to be concluded only with the last of the acts necessary for this, namely the definitive cancellation of the company's registered office from the commercial register of the state of origin.

It follows that in this case, since the deletion from the Italian commercial register had occurred after the filing of the bankruptcy petition, then the competent court remained the Italian court. In that case, the court not only rejected the debtor's request for payment of costs, but also ordered the debtor's sole shareholder, jointly and severally with the debtor, to reimburse legal costs.