Dale G. Higer is an attorney and a long-time Commissioner for the State of Idaho on the Uniform Law Commission. His newest role is Chair of the Commission’s newly-formed Study Committee on Assignments for Benefit of Creditors.
What follows is Mr. Higer’s report on the Commission and on the work of the newly formed Study Committee.
Uniform Law Commission
Alexandros Kontogeorgiou and Georgia Papathanasiou, Kontogeorgiou Bakopanou & Associates Law Firm
This is an extract from the 2022 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.
In summary
So far, the Bulgarian economy has encountered various COVID-19-related effects, but a surge in insolvencies is not yet one of them. Although the Bulgarian state was slow in implementing measures to help companies affected by the pandemic – which measures turned out to be insufficient – there has been no visible increase in bankruptcy proceedings since 2020.
We examine what impact the Court of Justice of the European Union decisions in Hampshire v PPF and PSV v Bauer will have on PPF compensation post-Brexit
The Executive Summary provided a short version of the facts. The next few paragraphs provide a longer version, or you can skip to the next section.
On 11 November 2021, the CJEU (C-340/20) ruled that the freezing of assets and economic resources under the EU restrictive measures (economic sanctions) precludes protective measures by creditors. Therefore, creditors should proactively seek protective measures or rely on a sanctions regime’s exception.
Restrictive measures
On 24 November, Royal Decree-Law 27/2021, of 23 November, approved by the Spanish Council of Ministers, was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). It extends specific financial measures to support economic recovery.
On 18 October 2021, the EU Commission published the sixth amendment to its Temporary Framework for State aid measures to support the economy in the COVID-19 outbreak (the Temporary Framework) adopted on 19 March 2020 (see our blog post).
Since 1 January 2021, the European Insolvency Regulation and the Brussels I Recast Regulation no longer apply to the United Kingdom. In addition, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement does not provide any specific recognition or enforcement mechanism in relation to cross-border insolvency and restructuring proceedings following Brexit. The question thus arises if and under which conditions Belgian courts will continue to recognise UK schemes of arrangement and restructuring plans post Brexit.
In her recent keynote speech, delivered at the 25th IBA Competition Conference on 10 September 2021, European Commission (the Commission) Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager called for a green revolution—the replacement of a linear economy with a circular one, coupled with investments in infrastructure.