LexBerg was instructed in 2020 as restructuring counsel to the management board of a mid-sized German manufacturing group operating plants in Berlin and Warsaw, which had filed for insolvency protection following a severe liquidity crisis triggered by the collapse of its primary automotive client during the COVID-19 period. The group employed 200 workers across its two facilities, and its Polish subsidiary had entered insolvency proceedings simultaneously under Polish law — creating a cross-border insolvency that engaged both German insolvency law and the EU Insolvency Regulation (Recast), which governs jurisdiction and coordination between member state proceedings.

The insolvency administrator appointed by the Berlin Insolvency Court had initially assessed the business as non-viable and recommended liquidation. LexBerg was engaged by the management board to challenge this assessment, identify a viable restructuring path, and locate a buyer or investor willing to acquire the business as a going concern — all within the twelve-week exclusivity period before the administrator's recommendation became binding. The 200 jobs at risk gave the outcome a significance that extended well beyond the financial recovery.

LexBerg's insolvency and restructuring team identified three potential acquirers within the first two weeks of instruction by leveraging established relationships within the European manufacturing M&A market. A structured sale process was launched in parallel with creditor negotiations, giving the administrator the market evidence and framework needed to justify a going-concern outcome over liquidation.

The challenge was threefold: rebutting the administrator's liquidation assessment with commercial evidence, running a competitive sale process fast enough to meet the exclusivity deadline, and coordinating the German and Polish proceedings so that a single acquirer could take on both plants as part of one transaction.

• A detailed going-concern viability analysis rebutted the liquidation assessment, demonstrating that the business was profitable at the operating level and that the insolvency was caused by a single concentration risk rather than structural business failure.
• Five potential acquirers were approached simultaneously, with competing indicative offers received within four weeks — providing the administrator with the market evidence needed to support a going-concern sale recommendation.
• The Polish subsidiary insolvency was carved out and coordinated with Polish counsel under the EU Insolvency Regulation framework, synchronising timelines so that the German acquirer could take on the Polish plant as part of a single integrated transaction.
• Working with the insolvency administrator and works council, a social plan was designed that protected all core operational roles and created a legally compliant severance framework for any roles affected in the twelve months post-acquisition.

A going-concern sale was completed to a strategic industrial acquirer within eleven weeks of LexBerg's instruction — one week before the administrator's liquidation recommendation would have become final. All 200 positions were preserved at the point of transfer, with the acquirer committing to maintain the Berlin facility as the group's primary production centre. The Polish subsidiary was acquired as part of the same transaction under the coordination framework LexBerg had established. Creditor recoveries under the going-concern sale exceeded the estimated break-up value by 34%, making the outcome superior for all parties. Two years after the restructuring, the business had returned to profitability and the combined workforce had grown to 240.