Maple Bank GmbH (“Maple”) has operated in Frankfurt, Germany since 1994. The bank acted in the business areas of equity and fixed income trading, repos and securities lending, deposits, structured products and institutional sales. Maple has branches in Germany, Netherlands and Canada and subsidiaries in U.S., U.K. and the Cayman islands. It is part of the Maple Financial Group Inc., a privately held, global financial organisation based in Canada.

On 23 February 2011, the Federal Government (Bundeskabinett) adopted the government draft (Regierungsentwurf) of an act (Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur weiteren Erleichterung der Sanierung von Unternehmen) that proposes material changes to the German Insolvency Act (Insolvenzordnung). The government's aim is to modify the economic terms for the restructuring of distressed companies .

On 13 July 2010 the Federal Ministry of Justice and Finance (Bundesministerien für Justiz und Finanzen) published a discussion draft of an Act for the Restructuring and Orderly Liquidation of Credit Institutions, for the Establishment of a Restructuring Fund for Credit Institutions and for the Extension of the Limitation Period of Corporate Law Management Liability (Restructuring Act) (Referentenentwurf eines Gesetzes zur Restrukturierung und geordneten Abwicklung von Kreditinstituten, zur Errichtung eines Restrukturierungsfonds für Kreditinstitute und zur Verlängerung der Verj

In this article, we focus on working capital and consider ways a business can seek to weather the storm and preserve all-important liquidity through this challenging period.

Practical Tips

Given the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19 globally, what can senior management do in order to manage and mitigate the risk to the company's financial health?

In September 2023, the insolvency administrator of the insolvent Wirecard AG began reclaiming dividend distributions for 2017 and 2018 from shareholders. This is following a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in March 2023 (BGH judgment of March 30, 2023 – IX ZR 121/22). In that judgment the BGH ruled that in the event of a company’s insolvency, the insolvency administrator can demand back dividend payments made to shareholders for up to four years pursuant to section 134 (1) of the Insolvency Code (InsO).

The European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 – MiCA), which entered into force on 29 June 2023, is a significant new regulation that will impact the treatment of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. MiCA requires the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop a series of regulatory technical standards (RTS) and implement technical standards (ITS) and Guidelines. Many of these regulations are to be developed in close cooperation with the European Banking Association (EBA).

Maple Bank GmbH (“Maple”) has operated in Frankfurt, Germany since 1994. The bank acted in the business areas of equity and fixed income trading, repos and securities lending, deposits, structured products and institutional sales. Maple has branches in Germany, Netherlands and Canada and subsidiaries in U.S., U.K. and the Cayman islands. It is part of the Maple Financial Group Inc., a privately held, global financial organisation based in Canada.

Hypo Group Alpe Adria AG, an Austrian banking group, was nationalized by the Austrian government in 2009 in order to avert a bank collapse. The Austrian province of Carinthia owned the bank until 2007 and the guarantees given by Carinthia for the bank’s debt still amount to several times its annual budget, which has made the winding-down process more complicated because sharing the losses with bondholders would lead to significant claims against Carinthia.

The Austrian “Bundesgesetz über Sanierungsmaßnahmen für  die HYPO ALPE-ADRIA-BANK INTERNATIONAL AG” (HaaSanG), published on 31 July 2014 in the Austrian Federal Law Gazette and implemented in August 2014 by the Austrian government, paved the way for the establishment of Heta Asset Resolution AG (Heta) as a wind-down vehicle to assume and manage large parts of the assets of the failed Austrian bank, Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank international AG (HAA).

The European Commission has reached agreement to update the current insolvency regulation known as Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 dated May 29, 2000 on insolvency proceedings.  The goal of the new Regulation is to rescue companies in distress. The proposed insolvency Regulation will change the member states’ insolvency proceedings with respect to both personal and corporate insolvencies and will include modified restructuring options that may not always result in a formal insolvency proceeding and liquidation.