The High Court has ruled that a claim for a declaration regarding a borrower’s obligations to provide information under a facility agreement was not a claim which itself derived from borrower’s French insolvency proceedings for the purposes of Article 6(1) of the Recast European Insolvency Regulation (EU) 2015/848 (the “Recast Insolvency Regulation”).
Following on the heels of the Gilets Jaunes protests and the strikes last December and January, Covid-19 is likely to be the final blow for companies that are already on shaky ground. The most heavily affected sectors will certainly be retail (which has been struggling for several years), tourism, air travel and events.
Law n°2015 990 for growth, activity and equality of economic opportunities, the Macron Law, was finally adopted on 6 August 2015. This law covers a wide range of matters from Sunday working, reform of regulated legal professions to driving licences.
Relaxing of the Regime for Free Shares
On 1 October, Ordinance 2021-1193 introduced changes to the 'accelerated safeguard' procedure making this the 'preventive restructuring framework' as required by the 2019 Directive.
Certain conditions for the opening of an accelerated safeguard procedure have been retained with some modifications:
The French Government made temporary changes to the insolvency law in order to protect companies, employees and managers from the cash flow consequences of the state of health emergency (Government order dated 27 March 2020 (No. 2020-341)).
When a debtor is in cessation of payments, it generally has 45 days from the 'cash-flow insolvency' to file for insolvency. The Government decided that the cash-flow insolvency of an enterprise shall be assessed based on its status on 12 March 2020 or the time of the expiry of the state of health emergency increased by three months.
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Actualité législative et réglementaire
- Ordonnance n°2017-1519 du 2 novembre 2017 relatif aux procédures d’insolvabilité
- Décret n°2017-1416 du 28 septembre 2017 relatif à la signature électronique
Jurisprudence
On 16 September 2021, ordinance 2021-1193 implemented the European Directive on preventive restructuring frameworks into French law. The Ordinance applies to proceedings opened from 1 October 2021.
Key features
Background
The crisis exit treatment procedure has been introduced to provide a temporary judicial procedure for debtors encountering difficulties related to the pandemic and the financing of their activities. This excludes debtors that are structurally in distress.
The procedure enables debtors to adopt a repayment plan within a three-month period to resolve the company's financial difficulties. The procedure is subject to the rules governing judicial reorganisation proceedings with certain adaptations and exclusions.
February 2017 N° 19 Fondo Atlante and the future for the financial institutions Tommaso dalla Massara Some news on insolvency procedures Fabio Marelli EU Commission first draft of ePrivacy Regulation Rocco Panetta Insurance Distribution Directive Guido Foglia ACROSS THE EUNIVERSE 2 In this Issue Editorial Giovanni Moschetta, Bernard O'Connor 3 What's App in Europe 4 Bernard O'Connor The next big thing for European data protection: EU Commission publishes first draft of ePrivacy Regulation to be discussed during GDPR transition period 6 Rocco Panetta, Francesco Armaroli Critical features of
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Recent Developments