The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic triggered – in addition to health and human tragedies – the most serious economic crisis since World War II. This economic crisis has led to financial difficulties for many German companies – especially in the tourism, gastronomy, aviation, hotel, culture and event sectors. COVID-19 also affects the overall economic development in many other sectors.
German insolvency case law on intellectual property rights has experienced rapid development in recent years, while attempts by the German legislature to regulate this subject with precision have repeatedly failed. The multitude of stakeholders involved (among them insolvency administrators, licensors, sub-licensees and creditors that have liens on IP rights) could not agree on a resolution acceptable to all.
COVID-19 and real estate: Germany’s economic situation and the legal framework from a real estate and restructuring perspective.
Die Frage der Kompetenzverteilung zwischen dem Vorstand und der Hauptversammlung der AG ist ein Dauerthema des Aktienrechts. Der Autor entwickelt ein eigenes Konzept zur dogmatischen Begründung ungeschriebener Hauptversammlungskompetenzen und untersucht, ob für den Börsenrückzug und die fakultative Insolvenzantragstellung eine Zustimmung der Hauptversammlung erforderlich ist. Der Autor lehnt die Frosta-Entscheidung des BGH ab und vertritt die Ansicht, dass der Börsenrückzug (reguläres Delisting wie auch das Downlisting) wertungsmäßig mit den in § 119 Abs. 1 Nr.
Germany’s planned Stabilization and Restructuring Framework (Stabilisierungs- und Restrukturierungsrahmen) is essentially an independent, out-of-court tool to implement a restructuring process by means of a restructuring plan in order to avert insolvency proceedings. The debtor and supporting creditors can rely on certain procedural assistance in order to implement and enforce a restructuring plan with their majority despite resistance on the part of individual stakeholders.
In the following, we provide an overview of government assistance that has already been implemented or is planned to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. The KfW Special Program is available as of March 23, 2020 and applications can be submitted. Please be advised that changes may occur at any time.
We are happy to assist you as you move forward and design a targeted and tailor-made reaction to the current challenges.
Numerous energy-intensive companies having production facilities in Germany benefit from energy regulatory opportunities to reduce their electricity costs. The economic benefits of using these opportunities can be significant and quickly amount to several million euros a year. In the context of a number of recent transactions and restructurings relating to energy-intensive companies, we have analysed how the planned transaction/restructuring would affect existing energy regulatory benefits.
Where restructuring measures comprising collective redundancies become necessary, the employer must fulfil a number of legal requirements to successfully implement such measures. While it is sometimes tempting to implement the necessary restructuring in a way that ignores the various legal requirements (e.g. co-determination of the works council etc.), there are only exceptional situations in which such a way does not lead to a total failure of the original plan.
Germany's major legal reform aiming to facilitate group insolvencies comes into effect on April 21, 2018 (full German text). The new law allows insolvency proceedings over companies within a corporate group to be concentrated at a single German insolvency court and/or to be administered by one insolvency administrator.
After having implemented stricter anti-bribery and corruption regulations in late 2015 and mid2016, new criminal law provisions regarding confiscation orders and asset recovery will enter into force on 1 July 2017. The present legislation was considered to be insufficient. Further, the law implements European provisions into national law. The law provides new rules for compensation of damaged parties and lower prerequisites for confiscations.