O Tell Me the Truth about Bail-in: Theory and Practice

This Article analyzes the functioning of the European regulatory approach to the crisis of credit institutions, in the framework of EU banking supervision and in light of its early applications, with a special focus on bail-in. We investigate how the new resolution mechanisms — rooted in the principle of private sector involvement in banking restructurings — have inter-played with legal and institutional contexts still characterized by an attitude to bail-out rescues and by non-harmonized national insolvency rules. We show how and well-experimented restructuring tools have influenced the application of the new ones and, in many cases, have emphasized the defects, pitfalls and inconsistencies of the new regime, suggesting paths for reform. The Article is organized as follows. Part II sets out a summary of the common regime applicable to credit institutions within the EU, based on harmonized requirements for capital and liquidity. Part III focuses on the pre-crisis and crisis tools, as spelled out in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive ("BRRD"), in coordination with bordering regulatory areas, such as the regimes applicable to the liquidation of insolvent banks and State aids in the context of banking rescues. After a brief comparison with the US system (Part IV), we dwell, in Part V, on the practice of restructurings, before and after the BRRD. We specifically discuss two cases (the resolution of Banco Popular Español and the liquidation of Italian “Banche Venete”) that, in our view, illustrate very well the pros and cons of the new regime. Part VI concludes offering some suggestions for possible reform.