Ireland

Irish travel tech company CarTrawler has seen a rise in bookings in recent months although it doesn’t expect business to fully recover until next summer at the earliest, The Irish Times reported. UK private equity group TowerBrook took control of the company in return for a €100 million cash injection in May after it was thrown into emergency debt restructuring talks due to the grounding of airline fleets globally amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ardagh Group, the glass and metal containers group led by Dublin financier Paul Coulson, swung into a loss in the three months to the end of June as its sales fell amid the Covid-19 pandemic and it booked one-off expenses relating to a refinancing of some of it debt, The Irish Times reported. The New York-listed company reported a net loss of $64 million (€55.3m ) for the period, compared to a $69 million profit for the same three months last year. Sales dipped by 6 per cent during the second quarter to $1.61 million.

The High Court has extended the period of bankruptcy of a Co Monaghan farmer, who was adjudicated a bankrupt in February 2016, to February of 2024, The Irish Times reported. After a short hearing on Monday afternoon, Ms Justice Teresa Pilkington said she was “very far from satisfied” that there had been full co-operation from John Hoey, of Annacroft, near Carrickmacross. Mr Hoey, who was present in court, became bankrupt in 2016 after a petition from John Kelly Fuels, Promenade Road, Dublin, for a debt of more than €260,000.

The coronavirus will hit Europe with a deeper recession than anticipated, with Ireland’s economy set to shrink 8.5 per cent this year,  according to a new forecast by the European Commission, the <em>Irish Times</em> reported. “The economic impact of the lockdown is more severe than we initially expected. We continue to navigate in stormy waters and face many risks, including another major wave of infections,” commission executive vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said.

The State’s corporate watchdog has moved to ease concerns of directors of businesses seeking to trade through financial problems caused by the coronavirus economic shock, but where the company ultimately goes under, The Irish Times reported. When liquidators are appointed to insolvent companies, they must issue a report to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) and initiate court proceedings seeking to have directors restricted, unless they are granted a waiver by the watchdog from doing so.

The High Court in Ireland has granted a restriction order against the directors of an insolvent company, Winning Ways Ltd, Pinsent Masons reported. The order was requested by the liquidator of the business at the request of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE). The judgment confirms that the onus is on directors to prove that they acted honestly and responsibly when raising a defence against a restriction order under section 819 of the Companies Act 2014.

Mothercare’s Irish franchise owner placed its 14 baby products stores into liquidation on Friday, becoming one of the first major retail outlets in Ireland to blame the coronavirus lockdown for its demise, Reuters reported. Mothercare Plc still operates around 1,000 overseas franchise stores following the collapse of its UK business, where it fell victim to stiff competition from online retailers and rising costs across the retail industry.

The economic, personal, and business challenges from the Covid 19 pandemic across Ireland and across the European Union are enormous, The Irish Times reported. One fact highlights this. In the EU in the past eight weeks some 50 million people – about 10 per cent of the entire population – now rely on government-provided employment subsidies. Not only can this not continue from a Government financing perspective, but it is a crushing blow for people who cannot find work or face long-term unemployment.

Once again, Irish banks are at the sharp edge of a global crisis, Bloomberg News reported. In 2008, it was the melting away of liquidity. Just over a decade on, it’s Covid-19. AIB Group Plc and Bank of Ireland Group Plc are the worst performers in the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index over the past year, as the pandemic amplifies investor wariness toward the lenders. To an extent, the legacy of the last crisis is shaping investor responses toward Ireland’s lenders this time round.

The Government has been urged to make temporary changes to the insolvency laws to prevent businesses unable to meet debts due to the coronavirus from going into bankruptcy, The Irish Times reported. Dublin-based legal firm Philip Lee said certain aspects of the regulations here needed to be “dialled down” to enable companies trade through the current crisis. In particular, it called for the penalties for trading while insolvent to be temporarily lifted.