У 2023 році процедура банкрутства в Україні зазнала вагомих змін з огляду на необхідність приведення законодавства у відповідність до стандартів ЄС та враховуючи виклики, зумовлені воєнним станом.

Верховною Радою України було прийнято 2 закони, які впроваджують ряд нововведень у процедурі банкрутства, спрямованих на її спрощення та автоматизацію, а також усувають чимало неузгодженостей та технічних недоліків у Кодексі України з процедур банкрутства (далі – КУзПБ).

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida created a three-factor test to help determine the ownership interests of social media accounts. The court in In re Vital Pharm[1] found that (1) documented property interests, (2) control over access, and (3) use, each play a role in establishing ownership over social media accounts.

Introduced ten years ago as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, the bill of law on the preservation of undertakings and the modernisation of bankruptcy law (the “Bill of Law”) was finally adopted on 19 July 2023 after a long and eventful parliamentary process. Greatly inspired by Belgian law, it implements Directive (EU) 2019/1023 on restructuring and insolvency. Its main objective is to favour early restructuring and to avoid bankruptcy.

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration did not have authority to forgive student loans under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). Despite this defeat, the Biden administration is still working to reduce the burden of student loans. Advocates for student loan relief argue that student loans can be a crushing form of debt in part because of their treatment in bankruptcy. It is the common belief that student loans, unlike other forms of unsecured debt, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Following are this week’s summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 17, 2023.

Click here to listen to the audio 

Restructuring Advisory Director, Luke Wilson sits down with Neil Taylor, founder and managing director of NTI, on the CPD Tap podcast to explore the latest insolvency trends.

1.1 The overriding objective

(1) The overriding objective of these rules is to enable the court to deal with cases justly.

(2) Dealing justly with the case includes –

(a) ensuring, so far as is practicable, that the parties are on an equal footing;

(b) saving expense;

(c) dealing with cases in ways which are proportionate to the –

(i) amount of money involved;

(ii) importance of the case;

(iii) complexity of the issues; and (iv) financial position of each party;

(d) ensuring that it is dealt with expeditiously; and

The long anticipated law of 7 June 2023 implementing the European Directive on restructuring and insolvency brings about a major reform of Belgian insolvency law. Among various other innovations, it introduces a new judicial reorganisation through collective agreement for large enterprises.

The new law will apply to all procedures opened as from 1 September 2023.

In this second of two client alerts, we will examine to which extent creditors can seek to impose a debt-to-equity swap on shareholders within the new judicial reorganisation for large enterprises.

The Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) offsetting mechanism will be cancelled on 1 May 2025

By then, Hong Kong employers can no longer offset severance and long service payments owed to employees against MPF benefits derived from employers' contributions. The Hong Kong government decided in July 2023 not to implement the "Specialized Savings Account Scheme" proposed in 2018 which would require employers to create dedicated savings accounts and make 1% contributions to prepare for the abolishment of such MPF offsetting arrangement. 

Each week we are seeing stories in the news about construction companies becoming "insolvent", going into "liquidation" or having "administrators" appointed. But what do these terms mean? Insolvency is a complex area of law with its own terminology, so we've broken down what all the terms mean below.

What is insolvency and what happens to a company when it is insolvent?