El Tribunal Constitucional ha declarado inconstitucional una disposición de una ley del Parlamento de Cataluña que permitía que, en caso de venta a un tercero (habitualmente un fondo) de un crédito garantizado con vivienda, el deudor pudiera liberarse de su deuda pagando al comprador de la deuda exclusivamente el precio que éste había pagado (más los intereses legales y gastos causados por la reclamación).

The Constitutional Court has held unconstitutional a provision in a law passed by the Catalan parliament which, if a loan secured with a home is sold to a third party (a fund usually), allowed the debtor to be released from their debt by paying the buyer out of the debt only the price the buyer had paid (plus the statutory interest and costs caused by the claim).

If your company has gone into liquidation and you are in the process of setting up a new business, you may want to use the same or a similar company name. However, if you either act as director or are involved in the management of the new company with the same or similar name as the insolvent company, you run the risk of both civil and criminal liability if you don’t comply with the restrictions under the Insolvency Act 1986.

Once again, the statistics show an increase in corporate and personal insolvencies nationally, with a reported 16,090 corporate insolvencies and 115,299 personal insolvencies in the UK in 2018. While the media is focusing on how this reflects on the economy and the government, insolvency specialist Tony Sampson looks at what it means for the millions of creditors involved in those insolvencies. In short, what will those creditors actually receive?

Profits made by a limited company are distributed to shareholders through the declaration of dividends. Quite often, for example in the case of SME businesses, the directors and shareholders of the company are one and the same. In such businesses, directors might take a minimum salary and pay the rest of their remuneration by way of dividend. For some time, this has been a tax-efficient means for directors to be remunerated.

However, before a company is able to pay a dividend, two main criteria must be met:

En una reciente resolución, la DGRN trata de equilibrar el necesario rigor que debe presidir nuestro sistema registral con la adecuada agilidad y seguridad jurídica que requieren los adquirentes de bienes cuando se ha declarado la insolvencia.

La Dirección General de los Registros y del Notariado (DGRN) ha relajado los requisitos de inscripción de los bienes adquiridos durante el procedimiento concursal y, señaladamente, durante la fase de liquidación. Así lo señala en una resolución de 24 de octubre de 2018.

The DGRN is seeking to strike a balance between the necessary rigor that must prevail in the Spanish registration system and the legal certainty needed for the recipients of assets during insolvency proceedings. 

In a decision rendered on October 24, 2018, the Directorate-General for Registers and the Notarial Profession (DGRN) relaxed the requirements for registration of assets acquired during insolvency proceedings, and specifically, during the liquidation phase.

Selección de las principales resoluciones en materia de Reestructuraciones e Insolvencias.

Nulidad de un despido colectivo realizado en la sucursal española de una sociedad sometida a un procedimiento de insolvencia alemán

Sentencia de la Sala de lo Social de la Audiencia Nacional de 30 de abril de 2018

Collective layoff voided at Spanish branch of a company subject to German insolvency proceedings

Judgment by the National Appellate Court (Labor Chamber) on April 30, 2018

An insolvency order by a German court on a company does not in itself authorize that company to carry out a collective layoff at its Spanish branch. The German company should have petitioned for a local insolvency proceeding on its Spanish branch to obtain authorization from the judge hearing the Spanish insolvency proceeding to conduct the collective layoff at its branch.

Are you a company director? If so, are you fully aware of your responsibilities and duties to your company? It is common for directors to be completely uninformed of the full extent of their duties, sometimes holding the belief that they can essentially do what they like – particularly if they are also a sole shareholder, which is often the case with SMEs.

What are directors’ duties?