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The Fiduciary Duties of Directors

When a company enters the zone of insolvency (the so-called “twilight zone”), conflicts of interest between the company, its shareholders and the different stakeholders, such as creditors, are ignited and the pressure on directors for contradictory forms of action is intensified.

On 31 December 2013, Banco de Portugal issued instruction no. 32/2013 implementing new rules on the identification and flagging of distress debt financing restructures (“Instruction 32/2013”) and revoking its instruction no.18/2012 on the same matter.

Instruction 32/2013 is applicable to credit institutions and to financial institutions with lending activity as well as branches of credit institutions with head offices outside the EU (“Institutions”).

The ability to "surcharge" a secured creditor's collateral in bankruptcy is an important resource available to a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor in possession ("DIP"), particularly in cases where there is little or no equity in the estate to pay administrative costs, such as the fees and expenses of estate-retained professionals. However, as demonstrated by a ruling handed down by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the circumstances under which collateral may be surcharged are narrow. In In re Towne, Inc., 2013 BL 232068 (3d Cir. Aug.