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Recent amendments to the Enforcement Procedure and the Interim Protection Act facilitate repayment in enforcement proceedings.

Introduction

Bills of exchange are mostly regulated by the sector specific act of 1946 (based on provisions of three 1930’s Geneva conventions). Provisions of other acts (eg, Obligation Code; Obligacijski zakonik) are used secondarily if the Bill of Exchange Act (Zakon o menici) does not contain applicable provisions.

While in other jurisdictions creditors of an insolvent company may swap their debts into equity, creditors in Austria are still confronted with a “take it or leave it” approach as to the proposed quota payment to unsecured creditors. The recent insolvencies of large Austrian companies show the inadequacy of Austrian insolvency law in that respect.

Financial crisis just arrives

The general legal framework of existing Bulgarian insolvency law covers the core features recognised by the international insolvency community and takes account of EC Regula-tions and Directives. On the other hand, it does not always achieve the proper balance between the need to address the debtor’s financial difficulty as efficiently as possible and the interests of the creditors.

This article highlights some inefficiencies of the existing Bulgarian insolvency regime compared with international best practices.

Scope

The Romanian legal framework on insolvency procedure has been consistently improved following the enactment of Insolvency Law no. 85 (Law 85), which entered into force on 21 July 2006.

Background

Introduction

On October 20 2010 insolvency proceedings were opened against A-TEC Industries AG, the Austrian holding company of industrial group A-TEC. With outstanding debt of around €650 million (including contingent claims), this insolvency is set to be the third-largest insolvency in Austria to date. Claims included around €300 million of bond debt (two convertible bonds and a corporate bond) issued by the company.

Many landlords are very familiar with provisions of the United States Bankruptcy Code dealing with assumption and rejection of leases. However, the particular consequences of lease rejection may not be as well known. For example, once a lease is rejected or deemed to be rejected, a landlord may not know its rights with respect to regaining possession of the leased premises. A recent case from a Florida bankruptcy court shed some light on this issue when it held that after a debtor has rejected a lease, the tenant must surrender the premises to the landlord.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has just issued an opinion that should concern anyone doing business with a debtor in bankruptcy. In short, the court ruled that a company that supplied $1.9 million worth of goods to a debtor after the petition date had to return the debtor's payment. The reason? The debtor did not have permission from the court or its secured creditor to use the money. The payments were for value given post-petition and were apparently made in accordance with the pre-petition practice between the parties.

Under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, a taxpayer does not recognize gain or loss on the exchange of like-kind property. Before 1984, the Code did not specifically address so-called deferred exchanges - exchanges in which the taxpayer relinquished property and some time later received the replacement property - although at least one leading case did. The 1984 rules require that the taxpayer identify the replacement property within 45 days after the disposition and close on the replacement property and close within 180 days after the disposition.

Much is being written about the significant losses suffered by automobile suppliers to both the domestic and transplant automobile manufacturers. These losses are creating alarm among many others, including the OEMs themselves, according to Dave Hannon at Purchasing Magazine.