DStV backs insolvency admission reform, fights priority rule

Germany's planned admission regime for insolvency office-holders wins cautious supportDstv from the Deutsche Steuerberaterverband (DStV). In its statement R05/26Dstv of 26 October 2026Dstv on the justice ministry's draft law creating a framework for insolvency office-holdersDstv, the association welcomes replacing the courts' disparate pre-selection lists with one nationwide admission procedureDstv, giving effect to the Federal Constitutional Court's 2004 transparency requirements and Article 26 of the EU Restructuring and Insolvency Directive. A central procedure and register could cut red tape, it adds, provided the new system does not itself pile disproportionate administrative, proof and cost burdens onto applicantsDstv.

The DStV welcomes that restructuring officers under sections 74 and following of the StaRUGDstv and reorganisation moderators under sections 94 and following count expressly as office-holdersDstv, reflecting that out-of-court restructuring is its own qualified activity already dominated in practice by tax advisers. But it wants the statute to state plainly that all office-holder activity is freelance workDstv, pointing to the partnership-company rule that lets tax advisers team up only with fellow freelancers. Without that clause, interprofessional cooperation could fray.

Entry qualifications are broadly workable but need fine-tuning. The draft demands a university degree, practical training and an examinationDstv, and rightly recognises the tax adviser's professional qualification in principle. Yet people appointed as tax advisers without examination, notably under the exemption for certain academics and officialsDstv, need an explicit clarification to count as wellDstv. Practical training must run with a licensed holderDstv, and while the DStV welcomes that up to 40 percent may take place with a tax adviserBstbk, it calls the rigid cap misplaced given the profession's restructuring expertise. Where the draft centres training on the classic administrator role, it undervalues restructuring work, so restructuring qualifications deserve equal weight, including skills earned toward the association's own certified restructuring and planning adviser titleDstv. The uniform theory examination for all candidates regardless of background should likewise grant relief to holders of regulated specialist qualifications.

The electronic office-holder register needs sharper statutory rails. Beyond master data it will carry an interest and experience profile shaped by chamber-issued schemes plus a free-text field, and the DStV wants the law itself to name registrable qualificationsDstv and to require separate recording of proven add-on qualificationsDstv, so that courts choosing office-holders see structured, comparable information rather than prose.

A blanket priority rule draws firm opposition. Where office-holder duties collide with duties from another profession, the draft gives the insolvency duties general precedenceDstv. The DStV wants that sentence deleted outrightDstv: tax advisers owe their own statutory independence, confidentiality and conflict-avoidance duties, and practice has settled on applying whichever professional rule is stricter in each overlap. A one-sided precedence for insolvency law would flatten that balance.

Transitional protection is welcomed in principle but drawn too narrowlyDstv. The introductory act grandfathers practitioners already activeDstv, which the association calls indispensable, yet it ties protection essentially to past appointments as administratorDstv. Since the new statute rightly treats administrators, restructuring officers and moderators as one professionBstbk, shutting restructuring practitioners out of protection is incoherent and unequal, and the provision must be widened to their work as wellDstv.

Finally the DStV questions adding the office-holder role to the statutory catalogue of activities compatible with the tax-adviser professionDstv. Compatibility already follows from the existing catch-all item and the professional codeDstv, which expressly cover insolvency and restructuring workDstv, so the association urges dropping the amendment to keep the statute's system intactDstv. Legal basis: BMJV Referentenentwurf eines Gesetzes zur Schaffung eines Rechtsrahmens für die Tätigkeit insolvenzrechtlicher Amtsträger (Bearbeitungsstand 23 July 2026Bstbk), draft sections 1, 2, 4 to 6, 25, 28 and 41 InsAG-E and section 1 InsAGEG-E; DStV-Stellungnahme R05/26.