Under Irish and UK law, company directors owe fiduciary duties to act in good faith in the interests of the company. The company's interests in this context usually means the collective best interests of the members. However, UK and Irish authorities have developed directors' common law duties, such that in cases of insolvency, directors have a duty to consider the interests of the company's creditors.

A February 16, 2021 decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held, in In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers, 520 F. Supp. 3d 390, that lenders who received almost $900 million mistakenly wired to them by Citibank (the administrative agent for a $1.8-billion syndicated seven-year term loan to Revlon [2016 Loan]) were entitled to keep the money.

In a William Fry article published earlier this year, we discussed the Irish government's approval to opt-in to a regulation amending Annexes A and B to the European Insolvency Regulation 2015/848 (EIR Recast) regarding the recognition of insolvency processes recently introduced in other EU Member States.

Despite optimistic predictions earlier in 2022, slowedglobal growth resulting, in part, from the war in Ukraine has elevated inflation and interest rates, reducing the availability of credit, increasing business borrowing costs and threatening the ability of companies to retain the confidence of their

We recently discussed the establishment of the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) with effect from 7 July 2022, and the commencement of the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Act 2021 (CEA Act). With the commencement of the CEA Act, some insolvency-related amendments to the Companies Act 2014 (CA 2014) are now in force.

With effect from 9 May 2022, a new Order 74C of the Rules of the Superior Courts came into operation. Order 74C facilitates the operation of the Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Companies) Act 2021, which inserted a new Part 10A into the Companies Act 2014 (Part 10A).

On 11 May 2022, the Dáil and Seanad approved Ireland's opt-in to a regulation amending the Annexes to the European Insolvency Regulation, 2015/848 (EIR Recast). Regulation 2021/2260 (Amending Regulation) which replaces Annex A and B to EIR Recast came into force in January 2022.

Two years into the pandemic, policymakers struggle to strike a balance between mitigating the ongoing human costs of the crisis and exacerbating the financial strain caused by economic support measures. The 2022 World Development Report (Report) considers the central role that finance will play in enabling countries to recover economically from the pandemic, which in 2020 caused the global economy to shrink by approximately 3% and led to the largest singleyear surge in global debt in decades.

Contents Living in a COVID-19 World Most of us have stopped asking, “When will it be over?” and have started wondering how we can live with COVID-19 – and how it will change our behaviour from now on. In the context of restructuring, as we saw during the recent Canadian federal election, bankruptcy and insolvency have become topics of increased interest in political and wider circles. This might mean we can expect a greater focus on regulatory reform in this area.

The Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Companies) Bill 2021 (Bill) detailing the government's proposed rescue process for small and micro companies (SCARP) has successfully passed through the Oireachtas and is expected to be signed into law shortly by the President. The legislation will be commenced at a future date by the Minister.