The simplified proceedings for the approval of an arrangement (postępowanie o zatwierdzenie układu) is the newest restructuring procedure available under Polish law.

It was introduced to the Polish legal system by the so-called Shield 4.0 enactment (ie Act of 19 June 2020, Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1086).

Here's a round-up of the key information you need to know about Poland's new simplified restructuring procedure.

How do the simplified proceedings work?

New amendments to Polish bankruptcy law were recently introduced through the so-called Shield 2.0 legislation. According to the Insolvency Law Act, an insolvency motion must be submitted within 30 days from the day on which the grounds to declare bankruptcy occurred.

Shield 2.0 sets out exceptions from this principle, provided that two conditions are met:

Bankruptcy and restructuring law in Poland is undergoing considerable modernisation, as demonstrated by the following:

Welcome to the results of our third annual Pensions in Restructuring Survey.

This year's survey gathers views on the issues with pensions in corporate restructuring, with a particular focus on the points arising from the Department for Work and Pensions' recent white paper, "Protecting Defined Benefit Pension Schemes".

Key Points

• Interpretation of EU case law on protection of pension payments on employer insolvency not “entirely free from doubt”

The Facts

The claimant (C) was a member of the T&N defined benefit pension scheme from 1971 to 1998. In 2006, the scheme entered a PPF assessment period and C calculated that his pension under the PPF would, as a result of caps and limitations on indexation, be roughly 67% less than what he had previously expected.

In the November 2013 edition of Pensions Pieces we referred to the Olympic Airlines case where a UK pension scheme could not qualify for entry to the Pension Protection Fund ('the PPF') because its sponsoring employer was suffering main liquidation proceedings in Greece, and further insolvency proceedings could not be established to satisfy the current entry conditions