As the business world starts to count the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government measures taken to contain it, attention is turning to the tools available to help companies that have been financially impacted.
Many companies are deferring payments to conserve liquidity, raising difficult questions around directors’ duties and leading to an immediate focus on how to protect the business from resulting creditor action.
The English Court of Appeal has handed down its judgment in the Debenhams case, on which we acted. A copy of the judgment can be downloaded here. This upholds the decision of the High Court, which followed the earlier decision in Carluccio’s.
Yeni Gelişme
Koronavirüs (COVID-19) salgın hastalığının Türkiye'de yayılmasını önlemek amacıyla hükümet tarafından alınan tedbirler kapsamında Cumhurbaşkanı tarafından İcra ve İflas Kanunu'nun ("İİK") "Fevkalade Hallerde Tatil" başlıklı 330. maddesinde kendisine verilen yetkiye dayanarak verilen "İcra ve İflas Takiplerinin Durdurulması Hakkında Karar", 22.3.2020 tarihinde yürürlüğe konmuştur.
Karar Ne Diyor?
Recent Development
In scope of the various response measures implemented by the Turkish government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Turkey, the President of the Turkish Republic issued the "Decree to Suspend Enforcement and Bankruptcy Proceedings" on March 22, 2020, in accordance with Article 330, "Suspension In Case of Emergency", of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law ("EBL").
What Does the Decision Say?
Yesterday the UK Insolvency Service released their quarterly statistics spanning October to December 2019. These confirm that liquidations and administrations in 2019 hit levels not seen for over five years. This signals a potentially serious underlying concern about the UK economy.
On 28 March 2019 the European Parliament adopted a Directive on insolvency, restructuring and second chance (the Directive). This project has had a long tail, following a Commission Recommendation issued in 2014 and, after that had no impact, a draft Directive in November 2016. This draft Directive is now about come to fruition. It has three main aims
1. to ensure that member states have a preventive restructuring framework – which includes a restructuring plan;
Are you prepared to take advantage if one of your competitors falls into difficult times or enters an insolvency process? Do you know your way around buying from a distressed seller? What are the things you need to know? How can you prepare? What will make your bid most attractive?
Recent high profile collapses such as HMV have highlighted the opportunities that can be found within the distressed space – if you are prepared and know how to act swiftly.
Recent Development
The Turkish Parliament enacted a law amending the composition (tr. "konkordato," a Turkish scheme of arrangement) articles in the Code of Enforcement and Bankruptcy in response to widespread abuse of the composition proceedings. The changes are effective as of the date of promulgation on the Official Gazette, 19 December 2018, with pending applications remaining subject to the previous version of the provisions.
The Amendments
The major amendments are summarized below.
Yeni Gelişme
Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, konkordato sürecinin suiistimal edildiğine ilişkin gelen tepkileri göz önünde bulundurarak, İcra ve İflas Kanunu'ndaki konkordato hükümlerinde değişiklikler öngören kanun teklifini yasalaştırmıştır. Değişiklikler 19 Aralık 2018 tarihinde Resmi Gazete’de yayımlanarak yürürlüğe girmiştir. Ancak görülmekte olan konkordato talepleri hakkında önceki hükümler uygulanmaya devam edecektir.
Kabul Edilen Değişiklikler
Önemli değişiklikler aşağıda özetlenmiştir.
On 18 December 2018 the English Court of Appeal held in the case of OJSC International Bank of Azerbaijan that the rule in Gibbs is still a fundamental tenet of English insolvency law and not to be sidestepped by the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations.
Facts
The facts in summary are these: