Op 20 juni 2019 heeft het Europees Parlement voor het eerst een nieuwe richtlijn aangenomen die het insolventierecht op Europees niveau harmoniseert.
Het was lang wachten tot het proces van omzetting in Belgisch recht eindelijk werd afgerond met de goedkeuring van een wetsontwerp in mei 2023 en de publicatie van de wet op 7 juni 2023.
De wet, waarvan efficiëntie het sleutelwoord is, zal op 1 september 2023 in werking treden.
Dit is een belangrijke stap in de richting van de modernisering van de insolventiewetgeving.
Le 20 juin 2019, le Parlement Européen a adopté une nouvelle directive qui harmonise pour la première fois le droit de l’insolvabilité au niveau européen.
L’attente fut longue avant que le processus de transposition en droit belge n’aboutisse enfin par l’adoption d’un projet de loi en mai 2023, et par la publication de la loi le 7 juin 2023.
La loi, dont le maître mot sera l’efficacité, entrera en vigueur le 1er septembre 2023.
On June, 20 2019, the European Parliament adopted a new directive harmonising insolvency law at a European level for the first time.
It was a long wait before the process of transposition into Belgian law finally came to fruition with the adoption in May 2023, and the publication of the law on June, 7 2023.
The law, whose guiding principle is “efficiency”, will come into force on September, 1 2023.
Volatile credit markets and guarded banks have made securing term loan C (TLC) debt attractive for borrowers who heavily rely on letters of credit to trade but either have low credit ratings or otherwise have difficulty accessing large enough revolving facilities to support the high amount of letters of credit needed.
Earlier this year, the English Court refused to sanction two Part 26A restructuring plans ("RPs") which sought to bind HMRC, the UK tax authority, into restructurings via "cross-class cram down".
Once perceived as a relatively moribund restructuring market, where stressed and distressed borrowers and lenders ended up stuck in interminable refinancing cycles faced with court proceedings that, at least in perception, prioritized local creditor interests, today’s landscape could not be more different.
The English High Court has sanctioned a restructuring plan in respect of EUR 3.2 billion of bonds issued by the German real estate business, Adler Group. The main objective of the plan was to avoid Adler's imminent insolvency by facilitating access to EUR 937.5 million of new money funding and thereby providing a stable platform from which Adler Group can pursue a solvent wind-down by asset sales over time in recovered market conditions. This represents a novel use of the restructuring plan procedure, which has previously been seen exclusively as a corporate 'rescue' tool.
In Re Zipmex Pte Ltd and other matters [2023] SGHC 88, the Singapore High Court imported into the Singapore restructuring regime the US concept of an "administrative convenience class" in a scheme voting exercise. This concept allows debtors to obtain an approval from a large number of low value creditors without those creditors being involved in the voting exercise. This reduces the administrative burden on restructuring entities.
On Friday March 10, 2023, the Bank of England moved to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into insolvency after it applied for £1.8bn of liquidity as its parent company was collapsing. The situation remains fluid, and the following Q&A reflects our understanding as of Sunday, March 12.
UK resolution authority and powers
On March 10, 2023, the Bank of England published the following statement regarding Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SVB UK):
European leveraged finance markets paused for breath in 2022, due to rising interest rates, volatile geopolitics and a tightening of financial markets across the board—but what can we expect in 2023?