The UK National Security and Investment Act came into force on 4 January 2022, significantly extending the UK Government’s power to investigate and intervene in transactions which pose, or could pose, threats to the UK’s national security.

As expected, the UK's latest quarterly company insolvency statistics, published on 28 October, follow the pattern of previous quarterly updates this year with the number of insolvencies continuing to rise in comparison with both the equivalent quarter in 2021, and pre-pandemic.

With the temporary insolvency measures implemented under the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act no longer in force, the Q3 2022 data shows a significant increase in insolvencies from Q3 2021, with the overall number of registered company insolvencies 40 per cent higher.

On 30 March 2022, the English court sanctioned the most recent restructuring plan proposed by Smile Telecoms Holdings Limited (Smile).

With two decisions (No. 1895/2018 and No. 1896/2018), both filed on 25 January 2018, the Court of Cassation reached opposite conclusions in the two different situations

The case

The Constitutional Court (6 December 2017) confirmed that Art. 147, para. 5, of the Italian Bankruptcy Law does not violate the Constitution as long as it is interpreted in a broad sense

The case

With the decision No. 1195 of 18 January 2018, the Court of Cassation ruled on the powers of the extraordinary commissioner to require performance of pending contracts and on the treatment of the relevant claims of the suppliers

The case

The Court of Cassation with a decision of 25 September 2017, No. 22274 confirms that Art. 74 of the Italian Bankruptcy Law provides a special rule, which does not apply to cases to which it is not explicitly extended

The case

With the decision No. 1649 of 19 September 2017 the Court of Appeals of Catania followed the interpretation according to which a spin-off is not subject to the avoiding powers of a bankruptcy receiver

The case

Applicable law

The Italian Government has been delegated to enact a comprehensive restatement of the whole set of rules of insolvency procedures, with specific innovative addresses regarding (to mention only the most important) the concordato preventivo procedure, venue rules, an out-of-court mediation alert process to timely address a risk of insolvency, new forms of security and a streamlined set of priorities among creditors

Introduction