How would your business be impacted if one of your critical suppliers entered insolvency proceedings? What losses could you suffer, and how would you maintain continuity of supply?
Recent high profile collapses such as Carillion have highlighted this issue, with counterparties suffering significant disruption upon its failure. In the context of increasing financial uncertainty – not least because of Brexit – companies should take a hard look at their supply chain in order to assess and mitigate counterparty risk.
Welcome to this month's edition of our commercial and tech update, covering a wide range of topics from Facebook's lacklustre approach in dealing with IP infringement to further confirmation on the Courts' approach to liquidated damages.
(Mis)Adventures in advertising
No es concursal una acción que tiene por objeto una pretensión de indemnización de daños y perjuicios por responsabilidad delictual o cuasidelictual, que ejercita el síndico en el marco de un procedimiento de insolvencia y que, de prosperar, daría lugar a la reintegración de lo obtenido en la masa activa. La competencia para conocer de ella se determina por las disposiciones del Reglamento Bruselas I (RBI, aplicado al caso por razones temporales, si bien lo decidido por el Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea [TJUE] se extiende al actualmente aplicable RBIbis).
Although they disagree about the severity, economists and market watchers generally agree that the U.S. economy is headed for a slow-down. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, industrial production and retail sales are at all-time highs, exceeding levels seen before the 2008 recession. Unemployment rates are at the lowest levels since November 2000. So why the gloomy predictions for 2019 and beyond? Historically, retail sales, industrial production and employment are at their peaks right before a recession.
Goodbye 2018 and hello 2019! It is that time of year to take stock and review your cash flow for 2019.
Within the European Union, cross-border insolvency is governed by the Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings.[1] Since Switzerland is not a member state of the EU, the EU Regulation does not directly apply to cross-border insolvency matters that are related to Switzerland, which significantly complicated the conducting of such proceedings.
At the beginning of a new year it is customary to consider what the year ahead may bring. 2019 promises to be eventful not least with the UK's (planned) exit from the EU on 29 March 2019. Here's what to look out for in the next 12 months…
Brexit
All three institutions of the European Union have now approved the EU Preventive Restructuring Framework Directive. This is the EU's first attempt to "harmonise" insolvency laws across the Member States, that have disparate existing legislation. What does the Directive do and what will be its effect in practice?
The Directive
On 14 November 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment on jurisdiction for avoidance actions under the previous Insolvency Regulation.
In its decision of 12 February 2009, the Court had already established that the courts of the Member State with jurisdiction to open insolvency proceedings are competent for all the actions directly related to the insolvency.
On 13 September 2018 the Government issued guidance relating to civil legal cases and insolvency cases where there was a ‘no deal’ scenario: ‘Handling civil legal cases that involve EU countries if there’s no Brexit deal’ (I shall refer to this as the “Notice” in this article).