The book The European Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1023 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2020 on preventive restructuring frameworks, on discharge of debts and disqualification, and on measures to increase the efficiency of procedures concerning restructuring, insolvency and discharge of debt) has to be transposed into national legislation by 26 June 2021. The main features of the Directive are:

• the obligatory making available of early warning systems;
• the obligatory creation of an insolvency avoidance mechanism;
• the determination of certain insolvency related officers' duties;
• the uniformisation of discharge rules among member states; and
• measures to increase the national insolvency laws' efficiency.

A team of European-wide recognised, experienced insolvency law experts, some of whom had been involved in the drafting process of the Directive, do analyse the Directive article by article. The authors focus not only on the officials tasked in the national surroundings with drafting the national statutes but also on the wider implications which, one way or the other, will be national law. The commentary, thus, serves also the purposes of practitioners and judges in the field of restructuring. The editors Prof. Dr. Christoph G. Paulus is a former professor for insolvency law at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; now Of Counsel with White & Case, Berlin.