It has long proved difficult to deal with financially distressed companies in India. One of the main reasons is the many tools available to the existing management of a company to prevent an external creditor from taking control over the company. On June 8, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular introducing new measures that should provide help to lenders struggling to cope with the mountain of bad debt owed by Indian corporates.

The dramatic decrease in the price of crude oil over the last eleven months has had ramifications across the globe. With prices currently languishing between US$60 and US$65 a barrel following the decision in November 2014 by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to keep its output levels unchanged (a decision re‑affirmed in June 2015), oil companies the world over have been forced to slash investment by reducing capital expenditure and exploration spending while simultaneously implementing a raft of cost cutting and efficiency measures.

English insolvency legislation, due to come into force on 1 October 2015, will have a significant effect on the rights of those who make essential supplies to insolvent businesses. Read more

There are numerous key players in the French market which have managed to overcome financial distress to a certain degree by implementing short term amendments and extensions to their debt but which are still in need of genuine, full-scale restructuring rather than short term solutions. Partly as a result of French insolvency legislation and the fact that France has always been perceived as a pro-debtor jurisdiction where it was accepted that short-term, debtor friendly solutions would win the day, it has not always been possible to implement more robust, longer term arrangements.

This is no doubt about it, being a director in a company facing difficulties is a complex and dangerous task, but one notch higher in the danger stakes is being a director of several companies belonging to the same group facing difficulties. Directors are often in the middle of a power game between various stakeholders, whether they are creditors or shareholders, who nowadays have no hesitation in putting pressure or even in suing them to have them held liable for breach of their fiduciary duty.

Recently enacted changes to the Lithuanian Enterprise Bankruptcy Law (EBL) as well as a fresh initiative by the country’s Presidency to further amend the EBL merit a closer look. At the beginning of this year important changes came into effect significantly altering the process of selecting administrators for enterprise bankruptcies. As before, the court opening bankruptcy proceedings against a company must also appoint an administrator. What is new is that as of 1 January 2015 the bankruptcy administrator is selected randomly by a computer program.

The Companies Law of Cyprus CAP113 (“Companies Law”) is based on the UK Companies Act of 1948 with the necessary amendments to incorporate the relevant EU Directives. The sections referring to restructuring and corporate insolvency, winding up voluntarily or compulsorily, registration and enforcement of charges and appointment of liquidators or receivers and managers remain basically unchanged, with the exception of the incorporation of the Third Council Directive on mergers and divisions of public companies.

The recent up-tick in covenant lite financings in the European leveraged loan markets has caused some in the investor community to express concern about what impact it will have when the debtor becomes distressed. This article examines the causes of the recent trend, and dispels some of the myths about covenant lite in the context of a restructuring. Read more

Greece entered its current economic downturn nearly six years ago. Since then, it has given up more than 25% of its GDP while unemployment and especially youth unemployment is skyrocketing. At the end of 2014 we saw the first indications of a return to growth but the recovery remains fragile and uncertain. Political uncertainty, to which the recent change of government is a significant contributor, adds further complexity to the recovery effort.

Following consultation with some of the leading international arbitration institutions1, on 30 April 2015 the Financial Sector Branch of The Arbitration Club2 launched the "Financial Services Expedited Arbitration Procedure" (freely available at http://arbitrationclub.org.uk/financial-sector/eplaunch).