Legal Status
The recently adopted Croatian Bankruptcy Act ("SZ")[1] sets out a new integrated pre-bankruptcy and bankruptcy regime. SZ has entirely replaced the previous bankruptcy act that was in force for 18 years, as well as provisions regulating pre-bankruptcy settlement proceedings prescribed under the Act on Financial Operations and Pre-bankruptcy Settlement
The Hungarian Parliament has adopted a new legal regime setting out debt settlement procedures for private individuals. The act will enter into force on 1 September 2015, and will have a huge impact on the business of banks and financial undertakings in Hungary.
The Bulgarian Corporate Commercial Bank ("CCB")’s insolvency has resulted in a variety of changes to the Bulgarian banking legislation. Lifting of bank secrecy in cases of bank insolvency is the newest addition to the pile of governmental attempts at accountability and transparency stemming from the CCB affair.
When a bankrupt company’s most valuable assets include consumer information, a tension arises between bankruptcy policy aimed at maximizing asset value, on the one hand, and privacy laws designed to protect consumers’ personal information, on the other.
Social media accounts can be “property of the estate” in a bankruptcy case of a business, and thus belong to the business, even when the contents of the accounts are intermingled with personal content of managers and owners. This principle was recently confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in In re CTLI, LLC (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Apr.
Poland's parliament recently adopted a new restructuring law (the “Bill”) which will substantially change the country’s economic environment.
After lengthy works, the draft of new restructuring law was finally adopted by the Polish parliament on 9 April 2015. The Bill now requires only the signature of the President.
The Bill provides for its entering into force on 1 June 2015, except for certain regulations that are to enter into force on 1 September 2015.
Current Polish bankruptcy and insolvency environment
Background
On 24 March 2015, the Bulgarian parliament promulgated an emergency insolvency law that makes almost all of the major effects of insolvency proceedings applicable to Corporate Commercial Bank, even as the court proceedings on the application for commencement of insolvency against the bank continue. In accordance with the new law, on 25 March 2015 the court appointed temporary insolvency administrators to that bank vested with broad powers to recover assets of the bank.
We don’t know about you, but we’ve been following the contentious litigation between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and debt-relief services company Morgan Drexen pretty closely. The CFPB filed its lawsuit in August 2013, alleging, among other things, that the company deceived consumers into paying unlawful up-front fees for debt relief services by disguising them as fees related to “sham” bankruptcy services.