Introduction: the New Guidelines in the Context of the State Aid Modernization Program

The regulatory amendments drawn up by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions following the outcome in Trustees of Olympic Airlines SA Pension &Life Assurance Scheme v Olympic Airlines SA have been drafted narrowly and may end up protecting no one other than the beneficiaries of the Olympic Airlines pension scheme.

The issue

On 1 August, new guidelines came into force for Member States to use in assessing whether support measures to rescue and restructure firms in difficulty are compatible with State aid rules.

To date, the German Insolvency Code (Insolvenzordnung) does not contain provisions governing group insolvencies. If several entities within a group of companies become insolvent, individual insolvency proceedings are opened and sometimes even individual insolvency administrators are appointed for each entity.

German proposals

Under the "resolution measure," the healthy assets and businesses of BES will be spun off into a new bank ("Novo Banco," provisionally), while problem assets will remain with the vestigial entity, and losses will be borne by shareholders and subordinated creditors. Novo Banco will be recapitalized by Portugal's central bank and rebranded.

Europe has struggled mightily during the last several years to triage a long series of critical blows to the economies of the 28 countries that comprise the European Union, as well as the collective viability of eurozone economies. Here we provide a snapshot of some recent developments regarding insolvency, restructuring, and related issues in the EU.

On 15 April 2014 the European Parliament voted in favour of the European Commission initiative for a Regulation establishing a European Account Preservation Order (EAPO) to simplify EU cross-border debt recovery in civil and commercial matters. This legislation aims to establish a procedure whereby the courts of EU member states can issue orders preserving or “freezing” bank accounts across the EU without the need for any intervention by the courts of any other member state.

On June 6, 2014, the Council of Ministers backed the Commission’s proposal, which was adopted on December 12, 2012, concerning the intent to modernize the European rules on cross-border insolvency.

In fact, every year in the European context, more than 50 thousands companies are affected by cross – border insolvency proceedings. Specifically one in four bankruptcies in the EU have a cross-border element.

La Sentencia del Tribunal General del TJUE de 8 de abril de 2014 (asunto T-319/11), resuelve el re- curso de anulación parcial interpuesto por ABN Amro Group NV contra la Decisión 2011/823/UE, de la Comisión, que le impuso la prohibición de adquirir empresas de cualquier sector como una de las condiciones para considerar compatible con el mercado interior la ayuda pública que recibió del Estado holandés. La entidad ABN Amro había recibido ayuda pública para su recapitalización de entre 4.200 y 5.450 millones de euros, así como una ayuda de liquidez de 7.170 millones de euros.

On 9 July 2013, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a new Directive on package travel and assisted travel arrangements to replace the Package Travel Directive¹ (the Directive) which has been long thought to have become outdated in the face of the growth of the internet and the “dynamic packaging” industry. Following extensive consultation with industry representatives and trade bodies, an amended version of the Commission’s proposal was adopted by the European Parliament on 12 March 2014 (the Proposed Directive).