The Government has passed an omnibus bill which introduced amendments that will assist New Zealand to respond to the wide-ranging effects of COVID-19.
In brief the changes to insolvency legislation are:
In Re A Company (injunction to restrain presentation of petition) [2020] EWHC 1406 (Ch), the Court held that it is able to take into account the likelihood of a change in the relevant law in deciding whether to restrain a winding up application from being brought.
The English Court of Appeal in Re Debenhams Retail Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 600 recently considered the inter-relationship between the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the ‘adoption’ of employment contacts by administrators under the Insolvency Act 1986. The issue was whether by paying only the amounts which may be claimed under the Scheme to furloughed employees, the administrators have adopted the contracts. Adoption means that the wages and other entitlements are payable as expenses of the administration ahead of other expenses.
The Federal Court of Australia in Strawbridge (Administrator), in the matter of CBCH Group Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) (No 2) [2020] FCA 472 has made orders to release the administrators of retailer The Colette Group (the Group) from personal liability for rent for a two-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Court of Australia in Frisken, in the matter of Avant Garde Investments Pty Ltd v Cheema [2020] FCA 98 has considered a dispute between a receiver and the director of the company as to whether the provisional liquidator, Mr Banerjee, should be appointed as the liquidator.
The director sought the appointment of different liquidators on the basis that Mr Banerjee’s conduct as provisional liquidator was such that a reasonable person might apprehend that he might not be impartial as liquidator.
The Government has published the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill (the Bill), an omnibus bill containing amendments (both temporary and permanent) to several acts. These amendments aim to both assist organisations in effectively managing the “immediate impacts of the response to COVID-19”, as well as mitigating some of the pandemic’s “unnecessary and potentially longer-term impacts on society”.
Selección de las principales resoluciones en materia de reestructuraciones e insolvencias.
La competencia para conocer de un ERTE por fuerza mayor derivada del COVID-19 corresponde a la jurisdicción laboral y no al juez del concurso
Auto del Juzgado de lo Mercantil de León, de 1 de abril de 2020
Un informe de la Comisión Europea, del 3 de diciembre de 2019, analiza en los marcos legales sobre insolvencia e impago de deudas de los diferentes Estados miembros y, en concreto, los distintos sistemas de ejecución –tanto individual como colectiva– y su efectividad para recuperar los créditos de dudoso cobro (NPLs).
Jurisdiction to hear a case related to a temporary layoff procedure due to force majeure caused by COVID-19 lies with labor courts not the insolvency judge
Decision by León Commercial Court, April 1, 2020
In this study dated on December 3, 2019 the European Commission analyzes the legal frameworks on insolvency and defaults in the various member states; specifically, the various individual and collective loan enforcement systems –and their effectiveness for recovering non-performing loans (NPLs).