The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands is rising.
Therefore, in mid-April, a number of professors, insolvency practitioners, employers and labour unions petitioned to accelerate the introduction of WHOA (Wet Homologatie Onderhands Akkoord – the Act on Dutch Court Confirmation of Extrajudicial Restructuring Plans to Avert Bankruptcy), the introduction of which was already planned.
According to German law, managing directors of limited liability companies are personally liable for payments made despite insolvency. Directors may even be liable when third parties make payments to the insolvent company's current account that has a negative balance because such payment will constitute a payment by the insolvent company to the bank
Building on measures already introduced in the Coronavirus Act – such as the moratorium on lease termination for non-payment of rent until 30 June 2020 – the Government announced that further emergency measures will be introduced.
Statutory demands and winding up petitions issued to commercial tenants to be temporarily voided
The forthcoming Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill will include restrictions on the use of statutory demands and winding up petitions to recover sums owed by tenants.
On 22 April 2020, the Slovak parliament passed a new law to help reduce the impact of COVID-19.
It is now possible for businesses to request temporary protection that will have the following effects:
What is CBILS?
CBILS is a government backed loan scheme to provide financial support to small and medium businesses (SMEs) across the UK that are experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. The scheme opened on 23 March 2020 and will run for an initial period of 6 months.
The scheme is delivered by accredited commercial lenders, backed by the government-owned British Business Bank (the BBB).
On 20 April 2020, Singapore’s Ministry of Law announced the commencement of Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act (the “Act”) and the regulations for businesses and individuals to comply with (the “Regulations”) in order to seek a temporary suspension of eligible contractual obligations for an initial relief period between 20 April 2020 and 19 October 2020 (referred to as the “Relief Period”).
New amendments to Polish bankruptcy law were recently introduced through the so-called Shield 2.0 legislation. According to the Insolvency Law Act, an insolvency motion must be submitted within 30 days from the day on which the grounds to declare bankruptcy occurred.
Shield 2.0 sets out exceptions from this principle, provided that two conditions are met:
The French Government made temporary changes to the insolvency law in order to protect companies, employees and managers from the cash flow consequences of the state of health emergency (Government order dated 27 March 2020 (No. 2020-341)).
When a debtor is in cessation of payments, it generally has 45 days from the 'cash-flow insolvency' to file for insolvency. The Government decided that the cash-flow insolvency of an enterprise shall be assessed based on its status on 12 March 2020 or the time of the expiry of the state of health emergency increased by three months.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, the Slovak Parliament has adopted a series of new laws aiming predominantly to support employment, to provide financial aid and tax relief (particularly to SMEs) and to preserve and regulate legal enforcement.
The insolvency law related measures include mainly:
Debtor's filing
The statutory time limit for debtors to file for bankruptcy due to over-indebtedness (balance sheet test) that occurred between 12 March and 30 April 2020 has been prolonged from 30 to 60 days (and is expected to be prolonged further).
On 30 July 2020, the UK Insolvency Service published its quarterly insolvency statistics. Notably: