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It will be possible to demonstrate that the center of the debtor’s main interests (the Comi-Center of main interest in the international discipline of insolvency) is in Bologna and not in London in the La Perla case and therefore gain the upper hand over the English justice system which aims to liquidate as soon as possible the luxury lingerie brand and related assets, which belong to the holding company across the Channel? The possibility of keeping the dispute relating to the historic Bolognese fashion house under Italian jurisdiction revolves around this question, having bounced between one foreign fund and another for 17 years, in an attempt to save 70 years of Made in Italy value and skills and 300 jobs in the via Mattei factory, activating an extraordinary administration and then looking for an investor to take over the entire complex.
It is with this question that the hearing at the Bologna court ended yesterday before the single judge Maurizio Atzori, where not only the Italian creditors intervened (the workers with their lawyers and the unions and the façonista of Ancona, Rina degli Antinori from which initiated the liquidation request) who are hoping for extraordinary administration, but also one of the English liquidators, Andrew Watling, who instead asked to release the assets and brands between London and Bologna to proceed with the sale as requested by the Court from London. Assets that Atzori instead subjected to preventive seizure as a precautionary measure according to the new Italian Crisis Code, in a great post-Brexit jurisprudential chaos. It will take about ten days to find out what the Court of Bologna will decide.