Reestructuring and Insolvency Updates 2-2013

1. NEW LEGISLATION

Royal Decree-Law 3/2013, of February 22, 2013, amending the rules on fees in the justice system

Royal Decree-Law 3/2013, of February 22, 2013, amending (inter alia) the rules on fees in the justice system governed by Law 10/2012 of November 20, 2012 (“Law 10/2012”), was published in the Official State Gazette on February 23, 2013.

The amendment to Law 10/2012 (see the January 2013 Newsletter) seeks to avoid situations arising where the level of fees can have undesired effects on specific individual cases in which the charged fee is too high. Royal Decree-Law 3/2013 also contains rules on calculating the impairment losses recognized in the financial statements in respect of specific items on the asset side of the balance sheet.

The new legislation affects insolvency matters in the following ways:

•  In relation to court fees, article 4 of Law 10/2012 has been amended to add an exemption from the fee for:
  “Action brought by insolvency receivers in the interests of the assets available to creditors in the insolvency proceeding, following authorization from the commercial court judge.”
• Concerning the impairment losses recognized in the financial statements, an amendment has been made to the single additional provision of Royal Decree-Law 10/2008, of December 12, 2008, adopting financial measures to improve the liquidity of small and medium-sized companies and other supplementary economic measures, to clarify that solely and exclusively in the financial years ending in 2013, and for the purposes of fulfilling the objective requirement for formal insolvency set forth in article 2 of the Insolvency Law, any impairment losses recognized in the financial statements in connection with property, plant and equipment, investment property and inventories will not be computed.

2. CASE COMMENTARIES
3. HEADNOTES
4. AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
5. GARRIGUES PUBLICATIONS