On 28 May 2020, the Hungarian Government adopted amendments to the laws on company liquidation and forced deletion procedures to cushion the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic on the economy.
1. Changes related to liquidation
Liquidation is initiated when a company is unable to meet its financial obligations and pay off its debt. However, in Hungary, the courts do not apply an actual insolvency test before ordering liquidation but check only whether certain criteria have been met.
Status as of 16/09
Table of Content
In many bankruptcy cases, disappointing recoveries lead creditors to look for deep pockets as targets. This scrutiny is frequently directed at a bankrupt company’s directors and officers (D&Os or fiduciaries) in so-called D&O suits. These lawsuits are most often brought by bankruptcy trustees, creditors’ committees, liquidating trusts, and other bankruptcy estate representatives.
Legislative Decree No. 1511, which was recently enacted in Peru, provides for a special bankruptcy procedure called the Expedited Procedure for Bankruptcy Refinancing (“PARC” for its initials in Spanish), which is intended to help businesses affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic negotiate with their creditors and agree on an orderly restructuring of debt payments to avoid insolvency.
Several aspects of PARC merit special attention, including the following:
The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill introduces a new standalone moratorium procedure for companies. The moratorium is part of a package of significant legislative reforms contained in the Bill and intended to enhance the UK’s restructuring rescue culture. These were originally consulted on in 2018 and have now been fast-tracked to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rapidly changing impact of COVID-19 on companies and the wider economy presents directors with the unenviable task of balancing the immediate need to secure the survival of their company against the longer-term implications for their stakeholders. In March, the UK Government announced that wrongful trading measures would be temporarily suspended to ease this pressure. The suspension measures are included in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill, which introduces both temporary measures, such as this, and permanent and significant changes to UK insolvency law.
On 23 April 2020, the UK Government announced that the use of statutory demands and winding-up petitions would be restricted to ‘safeguard the UK high street against aggressive debt recovery actions' during the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHAT DUTY?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
WHEN DOES IT APPLY?
Maintenance of solvency Management of business risks
L’art. 1 del cd. Decreto Liquidità prevede come noto la possibilità per imprese di ogni dimensione di accedere a finanziamenti bancari assistiti in misura variabile da garanzia prestata da SACE.
Nel suo articolato, la norma si riferisce alla “impresa beneficiaria” quale destinataria del finanziamento; sono tuttavia numerosi i riferimenti al gruppo di appartenenza di tale impresa, principalmente ai fini del calcolo dei parametri ma anche in relazione ad obblighi (ad esempio l’impegno a non deliberare la distribuzione di dividendi deve riguardare tutte le società del gruppo).
A company’s intellectual property rights[1] are some of its most valuable and most enduring assets. They are also often the most encumbered, or the most enhanced, by contract.