Presented as a major measure of the five-year French presidential term, the law “on growth and business transformation”, also known as the PACTE Act, came into force on May 24th, 2019. Amongst the changes that were brought, some of them deserve a particular focus.

Two phases of the reform. The PACTE Act revises the insolvency legal framework and mainly empowers the executive to directly implement the EU insolvency directive and to reform the law on security interests within a period of two years.

The first phase of the reform

On 1 December 2016, the current president and Socialist leader, Francois Hollande, decided not to seek a second term as President of France. Mr. Hollande is the first French President to decide not to run for a second term.

Introduction

On November 8 2016 Parliament adopted the Sapin II Act to promote:

• transparency;
• the fight against corruption; and
• the modernisation of the economy.

The act authorises the government to make decisions regarding legislative matters, including with regard to clarifying and modernising the status of security agents and their role in restructurings.

Recent Developments

PARLIB01/ZZZPARP/1030762.3 Hogan Lovells French Legal and Regulatory Update – May 2016 The Paris office of Hogan Lovells is pleased to provide this English language edition of our monthly e-newsletter, which offers a legal and regulatory update covering France and Europe for May 2016. Please note that French legal concepts are translated into English for information only and not as legal advice. The concepts expressed in English may not exactly reflect or correspond to similar concepts existing under the laws of the jurisdictions of the readers.

There is no equivalent to the English law concept of trust under French law.  This means that where a syndicated loan is to be secured by French obligors, security interests must generally be granted independently to each member of the syndicate (there will be a list of pledgees contained in the security document).  Any change to that group of lenders would generally entail the transfer of the French law security to each new lender.

Sommaire

• Le devoir de conseil du prestataire informatique
• Inopposabilité par la caution de la clause de conciliation préalable contenue dans un contrat de prêt
• Le devoir de conseil et d’information du conseil en gestion de patrimoine
• La notion d’investisseur averti
• Absence de subsidiarité de la responsabilité des professionnels du droit
• Dématérialisation des procédures collectives

Le devoir de conseil du prestataire informatique

Since the adoption of the 2011 Finance Act, the scope of application for thin capitalization rules, provided for in article 212 of the French Tax Code, was extended to all loans, including bank loans, backed by security interest or a guarantee, granted by a company belonging to the borrower's group or by a company with a guaranteed undertaking secured by a company related to the borrower.

In Germany, as in many other countries, a number of laws have been passed in order to respond to the economic challenges in connection with the Covid-19 crisis. This memorandum provides a brief summary and overview focusing on the most relevant changes to the legal landscape.

I. Financial Support

As Covid-19 continues to spread across the world, the likelihood of your organisation being directly impacted by the outbreak (e. g an infected customer, employee etc.) also increases. Each organisation should insure that it has in place a robust organisational resilience plan which addresses all relevant issues.