Protecting your business from exposure to supplier and customer insolvency

The risk of unforeseen counterparty customer or supplier financial distress and failure amidst the on-going challenges for businesses from COVID-19 means that pre-emptive legal and operational protections against the risk of heavy financial loss or business disruption from customer/supplier failure are more valuable than ever.

The Dutch legislator has published a bill for a new pre-insolvency tool, which seeks to combine the best of the UK scheme of arrangement and the US Chapter 11 procedure. The new legislation will be formally called 'The Act regarding the binding approval of debt restructuring agreements'. Among restructuring professionals it is already widely referred to as the WHOA (Wet homologatie onderhands akkoord) or the "Dutch Scheme". Currently, the WHOA is pending final approval by the Dutch parliament and is expected to enter into force on 1 July 2020.

This article was first published in Digital Asset.

“Immutable” is a term that is frequently used when people talk about blockchain and the benefit of using this technology for record-keeping.

On 29 April 2016, the Australian Government Treasury released a proposal paper that, among other things, proposed reforms to introduce an ipso facto moratorium (Proposal). This reform was foreshadowed in as part of the Australian Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda.

A revision of Dutch insolvency law is being considered to introduce a new scheme of arrangement process. The process, based on English law schemes of arrangement, is likely to have far-reaching consequences for both Dutch insolvency and finance law. 

FROM CREDITOR-CENTRIC TOWARDS DEBTORFOCUSSED INSOLVENCY LAW