On 5 March 2013, the Government submitted a groundbreaking bill amending Act No. 182/2006 Coll. on bankruptcy and settlement (the Insolvency Act) and Act No. 312/2006 Coll. on insolvency administrators to the Chamber of Deputies of Czech Parliament, which approved the bill on 8 August 2013.

The objective of the proposed legislation is not only to reflect changes arising from private law recodification, but also to comprehensively revise proablem areas in existing insolvency proceedings legislation.

In the current climate, the demand for jobs substantially exceeds the supply. Even so, for employers it can still be difficult to find a quality employee who meets the specific requirements for the given job. Once a suitable employee is found for the vacant position, they complete the usual formalities – submitting documents on their education, health and evidence of criminal records, agree with the employer on wages and other conditions of the employment and sign the labor contract.

In the September, 2006 issue of Insolvency Notes, the effect of the overhaul of the bankruptcy laws in the Czech Republic was discussed. As was the case at that time, the new insolvency laws were to become effective July 1, 2007. It now appears that the effective date will be delayed. The lower house of Czech Parliament gave fast-track approval recently to a bill for delaying implementation of the new bankruptcy act by six months, to January 1, 2008. Senate and presidential approval is still needed.

On 16 April 2014 the Estonian Parliament adopted amendments to the bankruptcy and reorganisation laws. The law has now been published in Riigi Teataja (the official journal) and will enter into force on 19 May 2014.

Recently the German Federal Government introduced a reform of the German Insolvency Code by adopting a draft bill of an Act to Further Facilitate the Restructuring of Businesses (the “Bill”). The Bill primarily focuses on the facilitation of insolvency plans as a tool for restructurings and to eliminate certain obstacles of the German insolvency law. If enacted as proposed, the Bill would simplify the purchase of shares of an insolvent company and would give investors more influence and flexibility in in-solvency plan proceedings.

INSOLVENCY PLANS

Last month, the German Ministry for Justice and Legal Affairs (Bundesjustizministerium) published a draft law proposal aimed at further "facilitating the restructuring of businesses".

Mining the wreckage

This article was first published on the Financial Times website on 10 September 2018.

It was the biggest bankruptcy in history – ten times bigger than Enron – and the tipping point into a global recession.

But what really happened on the ground during those fateful days, as the myth of certain banks being ‘too-big-to-fail’ exploded on a global scale?

It was a huge historical event, yet one with a distinctly human face.

Singapore’s new (the Omnibus Bill) was passed by parliament on 1 October 2018 and is expected to come into force later this year or in early 2019.

The Omnibus Bill, which was introduced to parliament on 10 September 2018, consolidates Singapore's corporate and personal insolvency and restructuring laws into a single enactment. It also generally updates the insolvency legislation and introduces a significant number of new provisions, particularly in respect of corporate insolvency.

The ability to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions can apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. A ruling recently handed down by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York widens a rift among the courts on this issue. In Spizz v. Goldfarb Seligman & Co.

THE RULING: CHAPTER 15 DEBTORS CAN ASSERT AVOIDANCE ACTIONS UNDER STATE LAW