When a company is in financial distress, directors face difficult choices. Should they trade on to try to “trade out” of the company’s financial difficulties or should they file for insolvency? If they act too soon, will creditors complain that they should have done more to save the business? A recent English High Court case raises the prospect of directors potentially being held to account for decisions that “merely postpone the inevitable.”
Die maßgeschneiderte Sanierungslösung für den Fußballverein in der Krise ist elementar für den zukünftigen Erfolg.
Die §§ 89 – 91 StaRUG: Eigenständiger Regelungsinhalt oder lediglich klarstellender Charakter? Wir klären auf!
Die EU-Richtlinie über Restrukturierung und Insolvenz (Restrukturierungsrichtlinie) enthält in Kapitel 4 (Art. 17, 18) besondere Vorschriften zur Insolvenzanfechtung. Diese hat der deutsche Gesetzgeber mit den §§ 89 – 91 StaRUG in nationales Recht umgesetzt. Daher lohnt sich ein vertiefter Blick auf diese Vorschriften.
Richtliniengeber möchte Finanzierungen und Zwischenfinanzierungen schützen
Das StaRUG hat das deutsche Sanierungsrecht ergänzt. Der neu eingeführte Restrukturierungsbeauftragte kann dabei als Moderator der Sanierung fungieren.
Ein Verständnis für die Rolle des Restrukturierungsbeauftragten* erfordert einen Blick auf den Ursprung und das Ziel des StaRUG. Es wurde geschaffen, um Unternehmen präventive Instrumente zur Verfügung zu stellen, die frühzeitigere Restrukturierungen außerhalb eines Insolvenzverfahrens ermöglichen.
Das StaRUG und der Restrukturierungsbeauftragte
A Hong Kong court has refused to sanction a scheme of arrangement, saying that practitioners should explain the key terms and effect of any proposed restructuring in a way which can be easily understood by the creditors and the court.
In Re Sino Oiland Gas Holdings Ltd [2024] HKCFI 1135, the Honourable Madam Justice Linda Chan refused to sanction a scheme of arrangement, saying that creditors had been given insufficient information about the restructuring and the scheme that would enable them to make an informed decision at the scheme meeting.
The Hong Kong Court of Appeal has finally laid to rest the vexed issue of whether an arbitration agreement or a winding-up petition should take precedence in an insolvency situation. In two parallel decisions, the Court of Appeal ruled that an arbitration agreement should be treated in the same way as an exclusive jurisdiction clause and that the principle should be given a wide interpretation.
The Hong Kong High Court has given a rare order for modifications to a scheme of arrangement after it had been implemented incorrectly by the scheme administrators. Drawing on instances in which the English courts have sanctioned modifications after approval by scheme creditors, the court held that the same principles apply here.
A Hong Kong court has rejected a bid to force liquidators to provide information and documents regarding their plans and strategies on related litigation as well as information on legal costs and funding arrangements.
New statutory provisions have come into effect that will modernise the way documents are filed with the Official Receiver in Hong Kong. The changes, which took place on the last working day of 2023, pave the way for the electronic submission of certain documents to the Official Receiver's Office (ORO) and dispense with the mandatory newspaper advertising of some statements and notices, which going forward will only require publication in the Gazette or other specified means.
According to a recent report, nearly 6,000 construction companies in the UK are in danger of going out of business. In Hong Kong, a major contractor has lost its licence and was removed from the government's registered list of contractors on 16 November 2023, with the company being given only a month to settle five private residential and commercial projects. When construction companies become insolvent, a host of tricky legal and practical issues come into play.
A bleak picture