According to the OECD, Portugal is in the top three countries in terms of implementing new measures to face this COVID-19 pandemic. However, regarding the legal framework of insolvency and restructuring, the only direct, exceptional and temporary measure approved by the Portuguese authorities was to suspend the time limit for the debtor itself to petition for insolvency, with effect from 7 April 2020. No pre-insolvency exceptional measures have been adopted.

A field of extremely high importance in a bank’s governance is the problem related to culture and integrity, and its being taken into account in an effective way in the entire organisation. This can be difficult to achieve since the notion is not inbuilt in the organisation and the leaders do not give it much attention.

When the Eagles wrote the song “New kid in town” for their famous album “Hotel California” released in 1977, they were not obviously thinking of the professional Portuguese restructuring player just introduced, which goes by the name of “corporate restructuring mediator” (hereinafter: CRM).

Nevertheless, the metaphor may be helpful to understand the expectations created by the introduction of a new player on the field and the contradictions involved in the general rules applying to the CRM.

Before spring even blossomed, the review of the Portuguese Insolvency Law was completed with the issuance of Law No. 7/2018 and Law No 8/2018 of 2 March 2018. The review began in 2017 with the Insolvency Act (hereafter IA) being amended by Law Decree No. 79/2017, of 30 June. The amendments may well be numerous and flashy, but do they embody a real shift of the Portuguese Insolvency Law? Let us have a look.