The director of an insolvent company appealed a restriction order made against him. The order prevented the appellant from acting as a company director or secretary for a 5-year period under section 819 of the Companies Act 2014 (the “2014 Act”). The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal as the appellant failed to satisfy the court that he acted responsibly in the conduct of the company’s affairs.

In July 2022 the European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the Regulations) were signed by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The EU (Preventative Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the Regulations) were signed into law on 27 July 2022. The Regulations largely focus on the examinership regime in Ireland which is already very comprehensive. However, the Regulations also include amendments to the Companies Act 2014 (the Act) in certain areas including codifying the duty of directors to have regard to creditor’s interests when facing insolvency.

Changes to the Act

In a William Fry article published earlier this year, we discussed the Irish government's approval to opt-in to a regulation amending Annexes A and B to the European Insolvency Regulation 2015/848 (EIR Recast) regarding the recognition of insolvency processes recently introduced in other EU Member States.

The EU Directive on Preventive Restructuring Frameworks (the“Directive”) precipitated a pan-European review by Member States of their corporate restructuring statutes. Several Member States (including Germany and the Netherlands), as well as the United Kingdom, made sweeping changes to their insolvency processes, in some cases introducing entirely new restructuring mechanisms. By contrast, Ireland preserved its examinership regime, introduced over 30 years ago.

Changes have been introduced to the current Irish examinership regime with effect from 29 July 2022 when the European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the “Regulations”) transposed into Irish Law certain mandatory articles of the European Union Preventive Restructuring Directive (EU Directive 2019/1023) (the “Directive”) that relate to corporate insolvency.

Some 12 months ago, following the publication of that year’s Courts Service Annual Report, we suggested that 2020 would be remembered as a year like none other. However, a year later, the publication of the Courts Service Annual Report for 2021 (Report) describes a year of legal activity, in a debt recovery context, that very closely mirrors 2020.

On the 29th July 2022, the European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the ‘Regulations’) were signed into law by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

On the 29th July 2022, the European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the ‘Regulations’) were signed into law by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 have amended the Companies Act 2014 so as to require for the first time in statute that directors of companies unable, or likely to be unable, to pay their debts, must have regard to the interests of creditors.

On Friday, 29 July the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment signed into law the European Union (Preventative Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the "Regulations").