Recital (64)

It is important to ensure that creditors are appropriately involved in insolvency proceedings so that their interests can be adequately considered. Creditors’ committees allow for better involvement of creditors in insolvency proceedings, in particular where creditors would otherwise be prevented from doing so individually due to limited resources, the economic significance of their claims, or the lack of geographic proximity. Creditors’ committees can help cross-border creditors better exercise their rights and ensure that they are treated fairly. Member States should allow a creditors’ committee to be established once insolvency proceedings are opened. Member States should also be able to provide that a creditors’ committee is established before insolvency proceedings are opened. Member States are not prevented from extending the application of the provisions concerning the establishment of creditors’ committees to preventive restructuring proceedings. A creditors’ committee should be established whenever the general meeting of creditors so decides or requests or, where national law does not provide for a general meeting of creditors, where creditors so request in accordance with national law. It should be possible for Member States to decide that the courts or competent authorities or insolvency practitioners can establish a creditors’ committee on their own initiative or at the request of one or more creditors, the insolvency practitioner or the debtor.