June 2023 – As part of a package of measures in the field of commercial law, the National Council of the Slovak Republic approved today, 28 June 2023, amendment to Act no. 7/2005 Coll. on Bankruptcy and Restructuring and on Amendments to Certain Acts, which confirms the long-standing treatment of the creditor-debtor relationship in Slovakia in cases of the potential relationship between the debtor and the creditor.
During the current state of emergency, the Romanian government has adopted a series of measures aimed at reducing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business environment in Romania, such as supporting the payment of technical unemployment, state guarantees for loans with subsidised interest rates for SMEs, and VAT refunds to companies. However, in some sectors of the economy being severely hit, we expect possible future insolvency cases.
1. Immediate action to be taken by the management of a company in the current context
3 August 2020 - This note discusses recent developments in Kazakhstan on the suspension of the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings. The proposed suspension was introduced to help businesses overcome the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and measures taken to slow it down. Our note is intended to be a helpful guide - it is not comprehensive and does not constitute legal advice.
1. Immediate action to be taken by the management of a company in the current context
February 2019 – On 3 December 2018, Bulgaria’s Supreme Court of Cassation (“SCC”) issued Interpretative Judgment No 1 (the “Judgement”) on interpretative proceedings No 1/2017 of the General Assembly of the Panel of Commerce. The Judgement provides guidance to certain issues concerning insolvency proceedings that in the past have been adjudicated differently by the courts. In particular, courts have reached different interpretations of certain provisions of Bulgarian law directly relating to the participation of creditors in insolvency proceedings and the satisfaction of their claims.
On 22 February 2019 and 26 February 2019 two bills were introduced in the Bulgarian parliament to amend the existing Bank Insolvency Act (“Bills”).
Under Bulgarian law, persons who manage and represent companies and cooperatives (“Officers”) have a duty to file for bankruptcy 30 days from the cessation of payments if the entity they manage and represent becomes insolvent. Apart from the personal liability to creditors for late filing, the aforementioned Officers could be held criminally liable. During the last few years, the practice of the lower courts regarding this criminal liability was inconsistent. Generally there were two interpretations of the law:
Law no. 151 on insolvency procedures for individuals[1] (the “Law”) is expected to enter into force on 26 December 2015. The Law was published on 18 June 2015, but its entry into force was deferred by six months in order to allow the establishment of a new public body to manage insolvency claims, as well as the enactment by the Government of the regulations for the implementation of the Law.
The Romanian Government recently adopted a Government Emergency Ordinance regulating the insolvency of the countrys territorial administrative units (the 'Ordinance').1 The measure, which was supposed to have been enacted in 2006, as contemplated under the local public administration law, was prompted mainly by the staggering amount of debt amassed by many territorial administrative units, as well as Romanias commitments to its international creditors, including the International Monetary Fund.
The new “company in crisis” special regime will become effective on 1 January 2016. It applies to limited liability companies, joint-stock companies and limited partnerships in which the general partner is not an individual.
A company is deemed to be in crisis when it is insolvent (within the meaning of the Insolvency Act) or at risk of becoming insolvent, which is the case if a company’s equity (registered capital, reserve fund, other capital funds, etc.) to debt ratio is lower than 4/100. This will increase to 6/100 on 1 January 2017 and to 8/100 the year after.