By Sarah Doerr, Moss & Barnett
A recent wave of lawsuits brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) seeks to address alleged “inaccurate reporting” by debt collectors and creditors. These lawsuits follow one of two trends.
By Thorsten Hunsalzer, Gehrke Econ Group
EU Directives 2017/1132 and 2019/1023 require all EU members to create a pre-insolvency procedure by July 2021. German lawmakers have recognised this procedure as a restructuring tool for dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and implemented it within a few weeks with the StaRUG act, which came into force on 01 January 2021.
By Steven Docherty, Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP
The UK Government’s approach to the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been to pull a series of different levers to try to protect businesses and the people who work for them. As part of that, on 26 March 2021, they legislated for the temporary suspension of liquidation petitions continuing until 30 June 2021.
By Barry Cahir, Beauchamps
COVID-19 poses high levels of financial distress for Ireland and Irish business. Ireland’s examinership regime (Examinership) and schemes of arrangement (Schemes) are effective tools for corporate restructuring, either immediately and/or once the more immediate threat of COVID-19 has passed.
By Dr Angelika Baumhof and Christian Pflaeger, Jakoby Dr. Baumhof
On 08 January 2019, the German Federal High Court of Justice (II ZR 364/18) ruled that an agreement about the sale of all or substantially all of the assets of a GmbH requires a shareholders’ resolution of approval; however, this resolution does not need to be notarised. Meanwhile the need for notarisation is basically argued in two cases. The first is if the asset deal leads to a direct or indirect dilution of the shareholders’ participation in the company. In such a situation it is argued that a notarised resolution of approval to an asset deal is required due to the seriousness of such measures. This derives from the leading Holzmüller decision of the German Federal High Court of Justice concerning stock corporation law.
By Dr Attila Kovacs, Kovács Réti Szegheõ Attorneys at Law
The European Court of Justice interpreted for the first time Articles 12 and 19 of the Sixth Directive 82/891 (1) in its judgement Nr. C 394/18. The Court held that those articles do not preclude creditors of the divided company whose rights arose prior to the division and who did not avail themselves of the credit protection arrangements provided for in the national legislation, in order to establish that this division is null and void. The dispute in the base proceedings is between the creditors of the company being divided and the newly created company to which part of the assets of that company has been transferred. Those creditors, considering that the divestment company had lost most of its assets as a result of the division, filed an actio pauliana seeking annulment of the divestment document. However, creditors did not avail themselves of the opportunity to object to the division, as required by national law when transposing the Sixth Directive.
By James P. Martin, Cendrowski Corporate Advisors LLC
Traditional collateral audits tend to focus on financial results and analytics, which provide a point-in-time snapshot of the organisation. Trend analysis of the data might indicate how reported results have changed over time, but a more valuable perspective is explanation of why the business is performing the way it is, and how it will perform in the future; this requires an operational view.
By Mario Kapp and Eva Pany, KAPP & PARTNER Rechtsanwälte GmbH
Arbitration is becoming increasingly important. It is the rule rather than the exception for international disputes. The reasons for this are obvious; in addition to the frequently mentioned advantage of greater flexibility compared to state court proceedings, the possibility of appointing specialised arbitrators, the shorter duration of the procedure, and, above all, the international enforceability of arbitration awards, are essential factors in why businessmen decide to conclude arbitration agreements. Both domestic and foreign arbitral awards are enforceable in Austria and are not complicated. Still, legal assistance is advisable to avoid potentially costly errors.
By Roman Makarov, Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners
The subordinating claims of affliated creditors is the most relevant topic in Russian bankruptcy industry in recent years. Now the courts actively subordinate the claims of affliates, but since such a possibility is not directly provided for by the law, the criteria were unclear until the beginning of 2020.
By Daniel Waldman, Pallett Valo LLP
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently delivered a decision that provides much-needed guidance on both the power and limitations of vesting orders in receivership proceedings.
