As a partner in Irwin Mitchell's Restructuring & Insolvency team, I have witnessed the challenges that businesses in the UK are currently facing. The decline in consumer demand has left many companies scrambling to cut costs and find innovative ways to survive. Recent research conducted by BDO, the accountancy firm, reveals that 57% of medium-sized businesses in the UK see the drop in Britons' spending as one of their biggest hurdles over the next six months.
Although a non-insolvency case the recent case of PACCAR Inc & Ors v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors (“PACCAR”) has caused waves in the litigation market (including insolvency litigation market) following the Supreme Court finding that litigation funding agreements (LFAs) where funders recover a percentage of the amount awarded to a claimant are damaged based agreements (DBAs) – which- unless the LFA complied with the Damages Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (“DBA Regs”) means that they are unenforceable.
My colleague Alex Chan and I had the privilege of participating in an interactive webinar hosted by the The Hon Edmund Wong, a member of the Legislative Council and the representative of the accountancy functional constituency. The webinar provided a valuable platform for professionals in the industry to delve into the significance of corporate restructuring and insolvency within the realm of accounting.
The Bulgarian government has introduced a new form of insolvency regime directed at merchants effective from 1 July 2023. In this new framework, a merchant is distinctly defined as an individual involved in business or practising a craft or a liberal profession. The criterion for the classification is the nature and scale of the operations, which should not necessitate conducting activities in a purely commercial manner.
The success of the recently introduced pre-pack-like rules in Hungary will help determined how the EU Directive on pre-pack sales will be implemented in this country.
Existing pre-pack-like rules
In recent years, the Malaysian government has taken various initiatives to revamp insolvency laws with the goal of assisting the public to cope with financial difficulties arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
With the amendment to the Insolvency Act in 2020, the bankruptcy threshold in Malaysia is currently set at RM100,000, which was raised from the original RM50,000. This was the second increase of the bankruptcy threshold within the span of a few years, with the previous increase from RM30,000 to RM50,000 in 2017.
A pre-pack insolvency sale, which is an expedited liquidation proceeding that allow for the sale of all or part of a debtor’s business as a going concern to the best bidder shortly after the insolvency proceedings are opened, is not formally regulated in the Czech Republic.
2023 has been a remarkable year with the past several months displaying an upward trend for the Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group at Morrison Foerster. We would like to provide our friends and clients with an overview of our current matters, each of which demonstrate our track record of being a go-to firm for complex restructurings across industries and jurisdictions.
In insolvency proceedings, it can be difficult to navigate how to close out a transaction with an insolvent counterparty without suffering excessive collateral damage. One question that may arise in this process is whether a contract with the insolvent party can be relied upon. Canadian insolvency laws provide special treatment for a certain category of contracts called eligible financial contracts (EFCs).
The Honourable Supreme Court, in the matter of Abhishek Singh v.Huhtamaki PPL Ltd. and Ors. recently rendered a significant ruling, establishing that a plea for the withdrawal of the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (‘CIRP’) can be allowed by the adjudicating authority even prior to the establishment of the committee of creditors (‘CoC’).