Financial distress and insolvency continues to be a main risk factor for businesses. Company managers and other executive staff have to be aware of these risks and the implications of business partners facing insolvency. Only then are they able to make the right decisions well in advance, to secure the interests of their businesses and to hope to find themselves in a more favourable position than unprepared and unsecured creditors in insolvency proceedings.

Eurozone banks must shed an estimated €3.2 trillion (US$ 4.3 trillion) of assets over the next three to five years as well as raise more capital, according to RBS research published in August.

SAUR (Société d’Aménagement Urbain et Rural), France’s third largest private water company, has successfully completed a restructuring of its €1.8 billion debt with a rare thing in that country – a lender-led debt-for- equity swap of an LBO.

In the financial markets concerns have arisen regarding the enforceability of netting and close-out rights and security rights in the context of the Intervention Act. On 16 December 2013 the Dutch Minister of Finance sent a letter to the Dutch Bankers Association and the Dutch Insurers Association stating that he has prepared a bill aimed at addressing these concerns, with the intention that the relevant new rules enter into force on 1 January 2015. It is also mentioned in this letter that the Dutch Central Bank intends to publish a policy rule aimed at addressing the same concerns.

On 17 December 2013 the Financial Markets Amendment Decree 2014 (the "Amendment Decree 2014"), containing amendments to a number of existing decrees, was finally published. Among other things, the Amendment Decree 2014 imposes the long-announced ban on inducements for investment firms. In its final form, the inducement ban deviates in two respects from the draft version submitted by the Dutch Minister of Finance to the market for consultation on 3 April of this year. Firstly, the ban is limited to investment services to non-professional clients.

At the very end of 2013, on 17 December, the final version of the Financial Markets Amendment Decree 2014 (the “Amendment Decree 2014”) has been published. The final Financial Markets Amendment Act 2014 (the “Amendment Act 2014”) was published only slightly earlier, on 5 December, in the Bulletin of Acts and Decrees. In this newsletter we will discuss a number of important new rules that have been included in the Amendment Act 2014 and the Amendment Decree 2014.

Martine Gerber-Lemaire anTd Christel Dumont report on the modernisation of insolvency law.

In the Middle Ages, when bankruptcy was in its infancy, options for debtors were limited.

Welcome to issue 8 of Global Insight, bringing you reports on breaking legal developments in restructuring law across borders and in jurisdictions around the world. http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/3cb77927#/3cb77927/1

The Bulgarian Parliament has recently adopted certain amendments to the Commercial Law which were introduced with State Gazette, issue 20/2013, effective as of 28 February 2013.