Intoduction
With the credit crunch impacting the Russian banking sector and Russian banks facing their gravest crisis since 1998 (as evidenced by Bank Globex freezing deposits), it is in our view timely to revisit the regulations affecting the insolvency of Russian credit organisations.
Since 14 August 2017 the Serbian Government’s proposal of new Amendments to the Insolvency Act („Amendments“) has been on the agenda of the National Parliament of Serbia. There is no information when the National Assembly will open the discussion and voting procedure on the Amendments. However, recent legislative practice in Serbia shows that Government’s bills rarely suffer material amendments during discussion and voting procedure in the Parliament. Below is a closer insight into the future legislative amendments to the Insolvency Act.
On 8 June 2018, the Serbian Parliament adopted the Law on Financial Collateral ("FC Law") which will become applicable on 1 January 2019. Financial agreements that are not fulfilled by 1 January 2019 will be implemented pursuant to the rules that were in force before that date.
Non-performing loans (NPL) are one of the principal problems of Serbian banking sector. Since 2009, number of domestic and international institutions have conducted various studies regarding NPL growth and have concluded that such growth is indicative of relevant macroeconomic factors. The main macroeconomic reasons for NPL growth in Serbia since 2008 have been increasing unemployment, currency depreciation and higher inflation rate.
Introduction
The new Law on Consensual Financial Restructuring (“Official Gazette of RS“ No. 89/2015) which came into effect on November 4, 2015, began to be applied on February 3, 2016. As opposed to the previous Law on Consensual Financial Restructuring from 2011, which did not deliver the expected results with regard to decreasing number of irrecoverable debts, the new Law establishes a better legal framework for voluntary debt restructuring in Serbia.
The new Serbian Enforcement and Security Act becomes applicable on 1 July 2016. The changes are numerous. This is the first in a series of our Newsletters in which we will address the novelties introduced by the new legislation.
The new types of provisional measures
The Singapore Ministry of Law will introduce the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Bill (the Bill) in Parliament next week to address the impact of COVID-19 on businesses and individuals' ability to fulfil their contractual obligations. The Bill will also make some temporary changes relating to bankruptcy and insolvency.
The Bill will apply to various categories of contracts, including:
The COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act (the Act) will have a considerable impact on the enforcement of certain contracts and commercial disputes in Singapore for the next 6 to 12 months. The Act was passed by the Singapore Parliament, and commenced on the same day, 7 April 2020.
The key measures of the Act are:
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