Following the Government's announcement in March that the hotly anticipated changes to the UK's insolvency regime would be rushed through Parliament with further, temporary, provisions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, insolvency practitioners and business professionals alike have been awaiting further clarity on what the Business Secretary's comments mean for businesses both in the current climate and more generally.
In collaboration with our foreign law firm partners, we continue to update our chart of COVID-19 measures taken by governments around the world. Today’s update includes new information for many countries as indicated in the chart: Global Government Measures Taken in Response to COVID-19.
On 30 April 2020 took effect Royal Decree-law 16/2020 of 28 April 2020, which includes a new set of measures within the judicial system to deal with the COVID-19 situation.
We highlight below the main measures adopted below:
1. Procedural measures
- Part of August is made a working month, on an exceptional basis
The 11th to the 31st of August 2020 will be working days for all judicial proceedings. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are excluded except for proceedings for which these are already working days.
The COVID-19 crisis has imposed difficult global challenges on the retail industry. Mass closures of brick and mortar store fronts and supply chain disruptions have resulted in an unprecedented halt to business activities. Nevertheless, there are some steps retailers can take to better protect their business interests.
There have been debates for years about the pros and cons of owners withholding retainage (usually 5% or 10%, depending on each state’s retainage laws or local “industry standard”) from prime contractors. Typically, the primes will, in turn, withhold retainage from all subcontractors. However, in these crazy times, when the future of private and public projects is unknown and profit margins are in question, it might be a good time to revisit this issue.
In our earlier article, we discussed the importance of timing in corporate recovery efforts and the difficulties facing companies with the examinership process and its legislative requirements.
Due to the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Thai Government has implemented a number of important initiatives aimed at supporting the Thai economy and affected industries.
As part of these initiatives, the Ministry of Finance of Thailand has enacted several important short terms and medium terms tax relief measures to support individual and corporate entities in Thailand to ease the hardships faced by many during these uncertain times. Set out below is a summary of these measures.
Defer tax filings and payments
Year in Review – Latin America in 2016
Argentina
Sovereign debt restructuring: On April 22, 2016, after Congress approved a settlement proposal, Argentina issued US$16.5bn of new debt securities in the international capital markets, and applied US$9.3bn of these proceeds to satisfy settlement payments on agreements with holders.
Foreign sovereigns have long assumed that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) provides them with substantial protection against litigants in United States courts. Although the immunity afforded by the FSIA has never been absolute, two recent developments in the Supreme Court of the United States – both involving the Republic of Argentina – have expanded plaintiffs’ ability to locate sovereign assets and force satisfaction of a judgment, notwithstanding the seemingly broad protections of the FSIA.
The rulings are important for sovereign investors for a number of reasons: