General remarks

In the case of syndicated loans involving Polish security providers there are two legal concepts that are commonly used to secure the lenders' rights under the finance documents:

The Russian Federation continues to take measures aimed at reducing the negative impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on businesses. On 1 April 2020, Article 9.1 (“Moratorium on Initiation of Bankruptcy Proceedings”) was incorporated into the Federal Law “On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)” (the “Bankruptcy Law”), and on 3 April 2020 the Government of the Russian Federation introduced a moratorium on the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings against certain categories of debtors on the basis of the aforementioned Article.

The confirmed number of persons in Russia infected with SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 (Corona) exceeds 6,000. Many people and enterprises are affected by non-working days, lock down measures and the resulting direct and indirect impact on work, business and finances. This summary highlights some recent legal issues in connection with the Corona crisis in Russia.

Quarantine and lock down measures

A syndicated loan involving several lenders requires a plain and transparent security structure that will be easy to enforce if an event of default occurs. For this purpose a security agent is often appointed, who holds all of the established security interests. In these cases a parallel debt is typically created according to which any amounts owed from time to time by any of the borrowers and/or guarantors to the lenders are also owed to the security agent (abstract acknowledgement of debt).

Introduction

Filing claims under senior facilities agreements with parallel debt structure