The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 is far-reaching with its implications extending to pension schemes. Pension scheme employers and trustees should ensure that they are familiar with the provisions of the Act, and the potential impact that they could have on schemes, employers and savers.

Introduction

The Act received royal assent on Thursday 25 June. The Act passed through Parliament very quickly, so that its provisions can be used by companies experiencing financial difficulty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Act contains:

On 25 June 2020, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the “Bill”) received Royal Assent and on 26 June 2020 CIGA came into force. The restructuring team in Mayer Brown’s London office has previously commented on the different elements of the Bill in a series of blog posts and podcasts.

The recent reform of the Bankruptcy Act (operated under RD 11/2014 dated September 5, 2014) intended to extend the bankruptcy agreement modifications in favor of the pre-insolvency restructuring and refinancing agreements which were introduced in March 2014.

The reform has a special provision for privileged creditors with warranties subject to specific valuation formulas, to be adjusted to the actual financial value of the guaranteed credit. Any portion of debts that exceed this value will not be considered as privileged, but will be ordinarily classified.

The Spanish Supreme Court has established the legalconcept of insolvency as an objective requirement forthe Declaration of Insolvency pursuant to Section 2.1 ofthe bankruptcy Act by virtue of the decision taken by the Court on April 1, 2014.

Background

Under the Pensions Act 2004 the Pensions Regulator (tPR) has the power to impose a financial support direction (FSD) requiring a company “connected or associated” with the sponsoring employer of a UK pension fund to provide financial support to the pension fund. To date tPR has used the power in insolvencies.

This summer has seen several pension issues making the news. They show how essential it is for employers and trustees to keep abreast of how developments impact on their arrangements.

Jay Doraisamy looks at five areas which have made the headlines this summer:

The matter subject to this analysis is decision taken by a Bankruptcy Administration dealing with three companies of the same company group which are involved in a bankruptcy proceeding. Given the situation and in response of the confusing information of assets, the Administration under discussion decided to gather the three companies joining all their creditors in a sole debt pooling and besides, joining all the rights and assets of the three companies.  

The object of this article is to analyze a controversial issue which is considered in recent times by the Mercantile Courts as a current incident involved in the Bankruptcy Proceedings and more specifically, to analyze the Judgement issued by the Court of First Instance no. 9 and Mercantile Court of Cordoba dated April, 19th 2010, in which the aforementioned incident is involved.  

This incident is essentially based on establishing the treatment that should be granted to the additional guarantees provided by third parties in bankruptcy proceedings.