1. For the purposes of this Directive, an employer shall be deemed to be in a state of insolvency where a request has been made for the opening of collective proceedings based on insolvency of the employer, as provided for under the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of a Member State, and involving the partial or total divestment of the employer’s assets and the appointment of a liquidator or a person performing a similar task, and the authority which is competent pursuant to the said provisions has:

Moreover, SMEs are incorporated since less than three years should not be considered as being in difficulty for this period for the purposes of this Regulation, unless it fulfils the criteria under its domestic law for being the subject of collective insolvency proceedings.

In order to ensure the effectiveness of the system, the Court of Justice has held that a decision handed down by a court of a Member State, based on the debtor's insolvency and seeking the opening of one of the procedures laid down by the Community regulation involving divestment of the debtor and the appointment of a liquidator constitutes a decision opening insolvency proceedings.

The mechanism providing that only one main set of proceedings may be opened could be seriously disrupted if the courts of Member States, hearing applications based on a debtor's insolvency at the same time, could claim concurrent jurisdiction over an extended period.

1. This Regulation shall apply to collective insolvency proceedings which entail the partial or total divestment of a debtor and the appointment of a liquidator.

This right would make it possible for a manufacturer to prevent the non-authorized extraction and/or the re-utilization of the whole or a substantial part of the contents of a database - without prejudice, however, to application of the rules of competition (especially as regards the abuse of dominant positions and abusive practices. The protection granted by this right would apply for fifteen years after the completion of a database. The Member States would have the option of providing for certain exceptions to the sui generis right, in particular as regards extractions for private purposes or illustration in teaching. Under the common position, the sui generis right could be extended to databases manufactured in third countries, on the ba ...[+++]sis of reciprocal agreements. The Member States should transpose the Directive into their national legislation before 1 January 1998. CONVENTION ON INSOLVENCY PROCEEDINGS The Council - noted the agreement of fourteen delegations on the current draft text of the Convention; - instructed the Permanent Representatives Committee to continue its proceedings and seek bases for rapprochement such that unanimous agreement could be reached and to prepare the explanatory report awaited for final approval by the Council. The draft Convention is based on the principle of attenuated universality, i.e. on an approach based on main insolvency proceedings opened in the Contracting State in which a debtor has the centre of his main interests and the possibility of opening secondary or territorial proceedings wherever he is established. The main proceedings would produce effects in all the Contracting States and the territorial and secondary proceedings would produce effects restricted to the territory of the Contracting State where they were opened. This approach represents a compromise which endeavours to take into account the various legal traditions in the Member States.