Le 16 avril 2020, le Conseil fédéral avait adopté l'Ordonnance COVID-19 insolvabilité. L'un de ses principaux objectifs était de diminuer la pression subie par les organes d'administration des entreprises suisses quant à leur obligation d'aviser le juge d'un surendettement (« dépôt du bilan »). L'allègement visait principalement les situations de surendettement causées par les effets négatifs de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les liquidités, le bénéfice et les perspectives de continuité d'exploitation.
Under Article 218 of the Companies Act, any creditor or creditors can, by means of an application, request the court for the winding up of a company. Such process takes place when the company is no longer able to pay its creditors and the directors are not in a position to make a declaration of solvency.
Background
With two of the UK's biggest cinema chains announcing, within days of each other, significant curbs to their operations due to COVID-19's continued impact on the entertainment sector, our restructuring and insolvency team have looked at the particular challenges faced by these venues and some of the steps their operators and funders should consider to help keep the curtains open.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UK'S ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
The UK Government announced on 24 September 2020 that some of the temporary Covid-19 measures introduced under the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act (“the Act”) will be extended.
Summary of extension
Summary of extension
Two directors from the UK were disqualified for 12 years each after they used funds from existing clients to payback previous clients. The directors' company entered into loan agreements with existing clients worth around £9.1 million for forex trades, in return for interest and loan repayments. The Insolvency Service later discovered that at least £8.4 million was used to make interest and loan repayments to previous clients.
In Chandos Construction v Deloitte Restructuring, the Supreme Court clarified one aspect of bankruptcy law – the scope and application of the anti-deprivation rule – while leaving an unsettled area of contract law – the penalty doctrine – to be resolved for another day. Here, we consider the implications of the newly-clarified anti-deprivation rule as it applies to the construction industry.
Background
The Australian government has taken swift action to enact new legislation that significantly changes the insolvency laws relevant to all business as a result of the ongoing developments related to COVID-19
Last month, the German Federal Ministry of Justice published draft legislation that could fundamentally change the restructuring landscape in Germany.
An essential part of the law is the introduction of a corporate stabilisation and restructuring regime, which establishes a comprehensive legal framework for non-consensual out-of-court restructurings in Germany on the basis of the EU's 2019 restructuring directive.
On 29 September 2020 the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (Coronavirus) (Extension of the Relevant Period) Regulations 2020 came into force. To keep this snippy, we’ll refer to these new Regulations as “CIGAR”.