A comprehensive change to German insolvency and restructuring law has become effective starting 1 January 2021. The change allows that a company's reorganization is possible without insolvency and includes the majority decision of its creditors.

As we attempt to mitigate the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our global supply chain, stakeholders should be actively considering downstream impacts. In this current environment, considering prospective internal and external bankruptcy and restructuring threats may be more important than ever.

Both the German federal government and various German federal states are pushing ahead with packages of measures to mitigate the as-yet-unforeseeable economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overview

In order to mitigate the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislator passed the COVID-19 Insolvency Suspension Act (COVInsAG; the “Act”), which came into force on 27 March with retroactive effect from 1 March 2020.

On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Public Law No. 116-136 (the “CARES Act” or the “Act”), the stimulus package designed to mitigate the widespread economic impacts of the coronavirus (“COVID-19”). The Act includes important temporary modifications [1] to Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”), applicable to small -business debtor reorganizations.

Temporary Increase in Debt Limit

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware recently granted in part and denied in part dismissal in favor of the defendant car manufacturer in a fraudulent transfer adversary proceeding brought by the Chapter 11 trustee in Emerald Capital Advisors Corp. ex rel. FAH Liquidating Trust v.