Brexit insolvency issues for trustees of pension schemes with overseas sponsors

You might remember that before 2016, in the world before the EU referendum (which did exist!), it was effectively not possible for the insolvency of an overseas sponsor of a UK pension scheme to trigger entry into the PPF unless the overseas sponsor had a branch or office (an “establishment”) in the UK (for legal geeks you might remember this was the issue discussed in the Olympic Airlines case which was heard by the Supreme Court in 2015).

Receivables financiers, lenders taking security assignments over contractual rights, participants in the secondary loan market and others have an interest in:

The EU Parliament adopted the Directive on future "Preventative Restructuring Frameworks.

This creates the basis for a uniform legal framework for preventive restructuring within Europe. To date there has been a "patchwork" of regulations in the EU: in some cases there are no regulations at all, in others there are sophisticated procedures in place. The new directive now counteracts the dangers and risks of such regulatory differences.

The EU Parliament adopted the Directive on future "Preventive Restructuring Frameworks", which creates the basis for uniform preventive restructuring across the European Union and will fundamentally change how companies deal with financial difficulties and restructuring.

Until now, the EU has suffered from a regulatory patchwork in this area with no regulations in some markets and sophisticated procedures in others. The new directive mitigates the dangers and risks posed by the former uneven regulatory landscape.

As more Turkish companies begin to report liquidity issues and economic pressures begin to bite, successful financial restructurings are likely to become increasingly critical to the prosperity of the Turkish economy

Only time will tell whether local processes will provide a suitable toolkit for large-scale corporate restructurings, or whether other international restructurings processes may also have a role to play.

The United Kingdom ("UK") has established itself as a leading restructuring destination in Europe.

1. Introduction

The Belgian legislature once again recently improved the statutory framework for business restructuring. Thus, any business - a broad concept that covers not only companies and non-profits but also independent contractors - in financial difficulty may request the opening of judicial reorganisation proceedings (procédure en réorganisation judiciaire), commonly referred to by insiders as "PRJ".

Under the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement, following an event of default, there is either an automatic termination or the non-defaulting party can serve a notice designating an Early Termination Date. There then has to be a determination by the non-defaulting party of the compensation that is owed by one party or the other. This is done by closing out the transactions, which involves determining gains or losses in replacing or providing the economic equivalent of the terminated transactions. Once that is done, a statement is served setting out the calculations.

Article 55 of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) (2014/59/EU) requires Member States to ensure that a bail-in clause is included in agreements containing liabilities of a regulated Member State financial institution which are governed by the law of a third country.