The UK, Dutch and German legislatures have been focused on significant changes to their national corporate and insolvency restructuring laws. While a new Dutch restructuring procedure (the “Dutch Scheme”) can be used from 1 January 2021, in the UK a new restructuring procedure (the “UK Restructuring Plan”) was introduced in Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 and became effective on 26 June 2020. In Germany, the Federal Government recently presented the revised draft bill to introduce a new pre-insolvency business stabilization and restructuring regime (the “German Scheme”) into German law. The new German Scheme is currently expected to be available from 1 January 2021 onwards.
The new restructuring frameworks show some interesting similarities, as well as some notable differences. Of course, each of the frameworks will develop its own particular characteristics as cases start being considered.
