The UK insolvency statistics released on 2 August for Q2 2022 (1 April – 30 June 2022) make for fairly sombre, if not entirely unsurprising, reading.

An 81% increase in corporate insolvencies in England and Wales from the same period in 2021 and a 13% increase in insolvencies from Q1 2022. The worst affected sectors are reported to include food, retail and construction.

Key Points

The EU (Preventative Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (the Regulations) were signed into law on 27 July 2022. The Regulations largely focus on the examinership regime in Ireland which is already very comprehensive. However, the Regulations also include amendments to the Companies Act 2014 (the Act) in certain areas including codifying the duty of directors to have regard to creditor’s interests when facing insolvency.

Changes to the Act

In a William Fry article published earlier this year, we discussed the Irish government's approval to opt-in to a regulation amending Annexes A and B to the European Insolvency Regulation 2015/848 (EIR Recast) regarding the recognition of insolvency processes recently introduced in other EU Member States.

On 6 September 2022, the new Spanish Law on Insolvency was finally passed, after individual amendments by the upper house of the Spanish parliament had still been discussed and rejected during the summer recess. The main part of the new regulations will come into force on 26 September 2022.

INTRODUCTION

The Act n 16/2022, dated September 5, on the reform of the Recast Insolvency Act, published on September 6, 2022, brings deep and major changes to the existing legislation.

The amendment will come into force on September 26, 2022, twenty days after its publication, and affect both proceedings commencing after entry into force of the legislation and a few parts of proceedings that had commenced earlier.

The differences between the original bill and the approved insolvency reform are shown in the compared version available here.

Introduction

The entry into force of the Insolvency Law, Decree 8-2022 of the Congress of Guatemala, on September 6, 2022, implies a total change in the regulations related to insolvency and bankruptcy of individual and legal persons, for both merchants and non-merchants.

The Spanish Parliament's extraordinary plenary session of August 25, 2022, has passed a law amending the recast Insolvency Act, which amendment will enter into force 20 days after it is published in Spain's Official State Gazette, the "BOE".

This new law, after suffering numerous amendments as a bill, establishes major changes in the area of insolvency, and it incorporates into the Spanish legal system the guidelines established by Directive (EU) 2019/1023 of the European Parliament and of the Council, dated June 20, 2019, on preventive restructuring frameworks.