In Short

The Situation:  A draft law designed to substantially reform the Belgian Companies Code was submitted to the Belgian Parliament for review ("New Companies Code") on June 4, 2018.

The Result: The New Companies Code will lift a number of mandatory rules applicable to convertible bonds and to the general assembly of bondholders.

In Short

The Situation: Belgium has introduced senior non-preferred notes, a new category of debt securities available to banking institutions.

The Result: In the event of a liquidation, senior non-preferred notes will rank ahead of subordinated notes, but behind "ordinary" senior preferred notes and any claims benefiting from legal or statutory preferences.

Cancellation of debt a key element of most restructurings generally triggers taxable income. The German tax authorities had issued an administrative decree (the "Tax Restructuring Decree" - Sanierungserlass), however, declaring that, upon the satisfaction of certain requirements and conditioned on forfeiture of any loss carry forwards, the cancellation of debt income ("CODI") would not be taxed.