Globalisation has been described as an evolving set of consequences – some good, some bad and some unintended. In this regard, when companies go global, insolvency is perhaps the furthest thing from their minds. Yet, while business failure may be unintended, when a global company becomes insolvent or attempts debt restructuring, its insolvency representative e.g. liquidator or manager, will often have to deal with assets and creditors across the globe.
Recently, government introduced a new draft law on the reform of the Bankruptcy Act and the Law regarding the Continuity of Enterprises (LCE).
The draft law still needs to be approved by the Federal Parliament, but it is expected to come into effect no later than 1 September 2017.
The current legislation on insolvency will be made up to date and adapted to European Regulations. Moreover it will be incorporated into the Code of Economic Law to make it a coherent set.
Below is a brief overview of the main new elements of the law.
As from 1 April 2017, Bankruptcy files will be held and followed up entirely electronically in the Central Insolvency Register.
Any bankruptcy that will be declared open as from 1 April 2017, has to be registered and kept in the Central Insolvency Register instead of the Commercial Courts Registry.
The Central Insolvency Register, hereinafter referred to as "the Register", is the computerized database in which bankruptcy files are registered and retained (www.regsol.be).
In a landmark judgment on 9 September 2016, the High Court of Singapore exercised its inherent jurisdiction to grant, on an ex parte basis, interim orders for the recognition of Hanjin's Korean rehabilitation proceedings in Singapore.
In a landmark judgment on 9 September 2016, the High Court of Singapore exercised its inherent jurisdiction to grant, on an ex parte basis, interim orders for the recognition of the Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd (Hanjin Shipping) Korean rehabilitation proceedings in Singapore.
This is a follow-up to our previous client update on Swiber Holdings Limited written on 29 July 2016. To view our previous update, please click here.
Counterparties of Swiber Holdings Limited ("Swiber") and its group companies would do well to keep a close tab on any debts outstanding from the group.
Swiber, an SGX-listed company in the oil fields services sector, issued an announcement in the early hours of Thursday 28 July 2016 stating that it filed an application in the Singapore High Court for a voluntary winding up on Wednesday afternoon, together with an application to place the company under provisional liquidation.
On 27 May 2016, South Korea's STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co. ("STX OS"), once the country's fourth-largest shipbuilding firm by revenue, filed for court-supervised rehabilitation, in the Seoul Central District Court.
Overview
The IMF, in a January 2016 update to its World Economic Outlook, revised its global growth projections for 2016 and 2017 down by 0.2%, citing a decline in emerging markets' growth and lower prices for energy and other commodities.[1]
With the trough in the global economy set to continue, there is unlikely to be any respite for the marine and trade industries, where counterparty insolvency will become more prevalent.