Once hailed as having the potential to add £5.7 billion to the UK economy in 2016, Northern business leaders operating in the tech space met to discuss how best to unlock the sector's growth potential. As part of CyberFest, Womble Bond Dickinson, alongside a host of tech experts and business leaders, aimed to tackle the issue head-on in an insightful roundtable.
The Supreme Court’s long-awaited decision in the Sequana case (handed down on 5 October 2022)[1] is the first time that the UK’s highest court has been asked to consider the proposition that directors are, in certain circumstances, under a duty in respect of creditors’ interests as distinct from shareholders’ interests.
The key takeaway points from this ‘momentous decision for company law’ (the words of Lady Arden who gave one of the leading judgments) are:
The long, long awaited Supreme Court Judgment in the Sequana case is finally here. Firstly, for those who may have forgotten what the Supreme Court was grappling with, the issue was 'whether the trigger for the directors’ duty to consider creditors is merely a real risk of, as opposed to a probability of or close proximity to, insolvency'.
In the years since its independence, Ukraine's public and private sectors have faced one crisis after another. Notwithstanding different factors causing distress and incomparable peculiarities of each, restructuring has always remained one of the key mechanisms to make it through these difficult periods and get back on track. This includes the current crisis due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Even in the present unprecedent environment, inaction is not a solution.
On 17 July 2022, Law 216/2022 came into force amending and supplementing Law No. 85/2014 on insolvency prevention and insolvency proceedings and other normative acts.
Law 216/2022 also amended Romanian Companies Law No. 31/1990 (Romanian Companies Law) on the duties of directors if a company is likely to become insolvent. Also, the law brings derogations from the provisions of the Romanian Companies Law on calling deadlines for shareholders’ meetings in those specific cases when a restructuring agreement or approval of the restructuring plan has been confirmed.
Summary
Restructuring Plans (“Plan(s)”) were introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) as a rescue tool for companies in financial difficulty to compromise debt and other liabilities owed to secured and unsecured creditors and its members, with the court’s sanction.
The new Companies House Register of Overseas Entities (the “OE Register”) became operational and key parts of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (“ECTEA”) came into force on 1 August 2022.
The land registration elements of ECTEA have been deferred and will come into force on 5 September 2022 – this second stage of implementation will with effect from such date have an immediate impact on the registration of property acquisitions and new leases and security being taken over those acquisitions/leases.
The Insolvency Service has reported the first disqualifications under new legislation introduced to tackle the practice of directors dissolving companies in order to evade debts.
Summary
The Insolvency Service has released its report on CVAs (the “Report”), which was commissioned in response to the significant concerns raised by the commercial property sector in recent years and the legal challenges launched by landlords against a number of CVAs.
Cryptoassets are in the spotlight for many reasons. The use of cryptocurrencies as an alternative to fiat currencies is being explored and tested further by global events. Their correlation with traditional stores of value is being tested in volatile markets. Their status as both a potential means of avoiding sanctions and as a possible means of funding charitable and humanitarian causes is being demonstrated and discussed.