Abstrakt
This paper seeks to answer whether the Polish and international legal systems currently allow a court to combine bankruptcy cases for joint examination or to implement other legal solutions in order to solve this problem in relation to commercial companies belonging to different groups. This aspect will be studied at the level of corporate bankruptcy model. The solution to this problem requires the prejudgment of many specific issues. Firstly, the rules on subject matter jurisdiction must be correctly interpreted. Secondly, it is unclear who may file a bankruptcy petition on behalf of a group of associated companies. This is mainly related to the issue of filing multiple bankruptcy petitions by various companies within a group in different jurisdictions on the same day. Thirdly, centre of business activity must be determined taking into account the functioning of a group of companies. It is therefore necessary to assess in which situations the main proceedings should be initiated and when secondary proceedings must be instituted in respect of the parent company or its subsidiaries. Moreover, it is also essential to determine the applicable law under which the main or secondary proceedings will be conducted in respect of the parent company?s branch. Finally, the paper analyses whether the numerous private law relations within a group of companies may constitute an independent ground for filing a petition for bankruptcy and whether this issue has been regulated by the bankruptcy law.