On 7 December 2022, the European Commission published the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council harmonising certain aspects of insolvency law. This Proposal is intended to harmonise the insolvency laws of EU member states in order to make insolvency proceedings more predictable and efficient. The Proposal also includes a number of principles the pre-pack proceedings in each member state must meet.

The Proposal defines pre-pack proceedings as:

Belgium is finally about to transpose Directive 2019/2023 on preventive restructuring frameworks and regulated pre-pack proceedings are now accessible.

European and Belgian legislative developments

Insolvency law has experienced significant activity in recent years, both at European level and at Belgian level, in favour of a paradigm shift of restructuring through pre-pack proceedings instead of liquidation.

On 7 December 2022, the EU Commission issued a proposal for a directive harmonising certain aspects of insolvency law (the Draft Directive). One key aspect of this Draft Directive is the regulation of pre-pack proceedings.

In the absence of any currently existing pre-pack procedure, this means that such a procedure will ultimately need to be introduced in Luxembourg law. Furthermore, pre-pack sales may have a more immediate future through Luxembourg Bill No. 6539 A, which entirely revamps Luxembourg insolvency law and should be passed in the near future.

前言

美国时间3月10日，加州金融保护与创新部宣布关闭美国硅谷银行（SVB），由联邦存款保险公司接管硅谷银行，原因是流动性不足和资不抵债。值得注意的是，硅谷银行作为服务于美国甚至全球创投圈的专业性银行，其关闭和破产犹如一块巨石在创投圈砸出了巨大的水花，并且波及整个水面。美国著名创投公司Y Combinator CEO将硅谷银行破产事件称为“初创公司的灭绝性事件”。

据相关媒体报道，位于北京的一家创投基金负责人向记者表示，受硅谷银行事件牵连，国内个别创投机构在硅谷银行仍有存款或者其他相关业务，正忙着处理资金问题。从私募基金的角度而言，我们不禁担忧：硅谷银行的此次破产事件是否可能影响由其托管的私募基金的财产安全呢？该事件对境内的私募基金又有哪些警示呢？对此，本文拟梳理境内私募基金托管法规和自律规则，并就相关风险提供专业建议。

一、私募基金托管“三问”

1、第一问：哪些类型的私募基金必须托管？

根据《私募投资基金监督管理暂行办法》¹、《私募投资基金备案须知》²等相关规定，目前四类私募基金必须或者原则上必须托管：

(1）契约型私募投资基金 

Floating charges are common features of finance transactions both in Scotland and in England, and share some characteristics, but these securities have different origins (the Scottish floating charge is a creation of statute while the English floating charge derives from common law) and other key differences which we outline below.

In the first part of this article, we dealt briefly with the European Commission’s proposals to further strengthen and ensure the proper application of the existing common framework for managing bank failures, through the publication of a proposed package amending the framework on banks’ crisis management and deposit insurance (“CMDI”) on 18 April 2023.

This might be the most confounding economy in memory, one that refuses to conform to any predictable script or playbook — just ask Fed Chair Powell, who continues the central bank’s yearlong efforts to slow an economy that won’t easily be tamed. But if you mention to someone outside of the restructuring profession that you’re a corporate bankruptcy advisor, the response you are likely to hear is something to the effect of, “Oh, business must be good these days.”

The first half of 2023 witnessed the failure of three financial institutions in quick succession—Silicon Valley Bank (March 10, 2023), Signature Bank (March 12, 2023), and First Republic Bank (May 1, 2023). This was the first time three financial institutions failed in such a compressed time period since the Great Recession of 2008.

On 8 March 2023, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands appointed Joint Provisional Liquidators (“JPLs”) over Atom Holdings (the “Company”), a Cayman incorporated holding company for the Atom Group, which operated a cryptocurrency exchange via an online platform known as AAX (Atom Asset Exchange).

Introduction and background