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New proposals to rescue Irish small businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis must focus on those with viable futures, a leading insolvency practitioner has warned, the Irish Times reported. The Company Law Review Group (CLRG) has been seeking views on proposals for a scheme to rescue financially-troubled small businesses that avoids the need for court hearings but, like examinership, gives the enterprise temporary protection from creditors.
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India’s move to allow smaller firms to use a more efficient bankruptcy filing system opens the door for the broader adoption of a process that may help the country to tackle one the world’s worst bad debt problems, Bloomberg News reported. An executive order by the federal government on Sunday means that SMEs can now work out a resolution with creditors before they reach court. Market participants are pressuring authorities to allow larger companies to use this prepackaged system in order to speed up the process in India, where cases often languish for years.
D-RT Group, the parent of Dutch tour operator D-reizen, has been declared bankrupt, a court spokesman said on Tuesday, potentially affecting more than 1,000 employees, Reuters reported. The Netherlands has largely avoided corporate bankruptcies during the pandemic as employers are able to receive government support to continue paying employees. “This is a pitch black day for us” broadcaster NOS quoted CEO Jan Henne de Dijn as saying, adding the company, a unit of German firm Raiffeisen Touristik Group GmbH, had been in talks to avoid bankruptcy.
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The U.K. government told Britons to hold off on planning foreign holidays this summer, deflating the hopes of an airline industry desperate to get flying again before another high season slips by, Bloomberg News reported. While confirming that restaurants, pubs and shops in England will reopen next week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it’s not yet clear that non-essential international travel can resume safely as planned on May 17.
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China’s efforts to get its people spending got a boost over the three-day traditional tomb-sweeping holiday, with official and private data showing travel back up to pre-coronavirus levels by some metrics, the Wall Street Journal reported. Swaths of China’s economy, in particular manufacturing and exports, long ago regained their pre-virus levels. But consumer spending, held back by travel restrictions and caution over the possibility of a resurgence, has been a persistent laggard for the past year.
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New Zealand will allow quarantine-free visits by Australians from April 19, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday, creating a "travel bubble" for the neighbouring nations which have closed borders to the rest of the world to eradicate COVID-19, Nikkei Asia reported. Though most Australian states have allowed quarantine-free visits from New Zealanders for months, New Zealand has continued mandatory quarantine from its neighbour, citing concern about small COVID-19 outbreaks there.
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An Indian court on Tuesday said that China’s ByteDance must deposit around $11 million that federal authorities believe the company owes in an alleged case of tax evasion, a setback for the firm which wanted to unblock its bank accounts to pay salaries, Reuters reported. An Indian tax intelligence agency in mid-March ordered HSBC and Citibank in Mumbai to freeze accounts of ByteDance India as it probed some of the firm’s financial dealings. ByteDance challenged the move in court saying the freeze amounted to harassment and was done illegally.
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The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and vast sums of government aid will accelerate global economic growth to a record high this year in a powerful rebound from the pandemic recession, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest forecast, the Associated Press reported. The 190-country lending agency said Tuesday that it expects the world economy to expand 6% in 2021, up from the 5.5% it had forecast in January. It would be the fastest expansion for the global economy in IMF records dating back to 1980.
The Central Government has promulgated Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 to allow pre-packaged insolvency process for MSMEs, the Economic Times of India reported. The Ordinance, in essence, has amended the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 and allows the Central Government to notify such pre packaged process for defaults of not more than Rs 1 crore. The government had been looking to offer a pre-packaged resolution framework for stressed companies under the IBC.
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IDA Ireland has clawed back almost € 55 million in grants from multinational companies over a 10 year period,figures provided by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar show, the Irish Times reported. In a written Dáil reply to co-leader of the Social Democrats Catherine Murphy, Mr. Varadkar confirmed that the largest annual clawback of the grants took place in 2011 when the IDA clawed back €18.7million from 11 companies. This followed the IDA revoking €12.88 million in grants in 2010 from 16 companies as unemployment rates soared.
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