Sultani Decrees
Sultani Decree No. 2/2013
Establishes the National Defence College and issues its by-laws.
Promulgated on 8 January 2013 Effective from day following publication
Sultani Decree No. 3/2013
Establishes the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Emergency Services.
Promulgated on 8 January 2013 Effective from day following publication
Sultani Decree No. 4/2013
European Commission Work Programme
This Briefing contains a general summary of developments and is not a complete or definitive statement of the law. It also updates the Briefing published in July 2012 on the Personal Insolvency Bill. Specific legal advice should be obtained where appropriate.
Introduction
The Government has fed back on the responses to DBIS’s consultation on the effect of bankruptcy on the ability to access a basic bank account. Responses to the consultation have shown that only 27% of people subject to a bankruptcy order are able to retain their bank account. A bank's decision not to offer a bank account to a bankrupt is mainly based on the bankrupt's credit record, rather than on the risk of the trustee making a claim against the bank, a risk that the consultation process has shown is more perceived than real.
The Illinois legislature has passed and sent to the Governor an amendment to the Illinois Conveyances Act to address the decision in Crane v. The Gifford State Bank (2012 WL 669595 (Bkrtcy.C.D. Il). The Crane decision was rendered on February 29, 2012, and held that a mortgage could be avoided by a trustee in bankruptcy because it failed to include the interest rate and maturity date of the indebtedness secured by the mortgage.
Ministerial Decisions
Ministry of Manpower
Decision No. 611/2012
Dissolves the trade union of the employees of Sojex Oman due to its failure to appoint sufficient members for the General Assembly.
Promulgated on 10 November 2012 Effective on promulgation
Ministry of Manpower
Decision No. 612/2012
Dissolves the trade union of the employees of Gulf Air due to its liquidation.
Several industry associations (ISDA, BBA and FOA – the futures and options association) have responded to a Treasury informal consultation on the need to carve out from English insolvency law the porting of clearing clients’ positions and margin. They agree on the need to ensure certainty around the porting option when a clearing member becomes insolvent. EMIR’s porting option should also apply where the clearing member is acting through back-to-back transactions and holds the client’s margin. The associations note that porting should be subject to agreement.
FSA has launched a consultation and discussion paper on proposals to bring the Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS) in line with EMIR. More generally, it wants to make CASS client money pooling provisions more flexible and address the problems identified during the Lehman and MF Global insolvencies.
The proposals cover the following: