Ecovis in North Macedonia

Ecovis is now offering legal services in Thailand

In addition to our existing partners of ECOVIS A.A.C we welcome our new partners from JTJB International Lawyers Co., Ltd. – Member of ECOVIS International from Bangkok.

JTJB International Lawyers Co., Ltd. – Member of ECOVIS International is a full-service international law firm specializing in various legal practices especially Shipping and Maritime, Dispute Resolution, Corporate and M&A, Project Development, Foreign Direct Investment, and Tax and Customs. The firm was founded in September 2005 and is now under the leadership of Managing Partner, namely Mr. Naiyachon Tathong, who previously was the head of litigation at another leading international law firm in Bangkok. The two other partners are Mr. Bunnasomboon Chaiparinya (or Aaron) and Mr. Kosol Suriyaporn. They are highly experienced and skilled in the fields of Corporate and M&A, Foreign Direct Investment as well as Tax & Customs respectively. Beside the three partners, there are numbers of highly trained professionals and administrative staff members. Throughout 15 years of experience in the legal field, JTJB International Lawyers Co., Ltd. – Member of ECOVIS International has been awarded and recommended by the Legal500, Asialaw Profiles, Benchmark Litigation, IFLR1000, and the Asia Business Law Journal.

We warmly welcome our new colleagues from Bangkok to the Ecovis family!

StaRUG: Act on the Stabilisation and Restructuring Framework for Businesses

The new German Act on the Further Development of Restructuring and Insolvency Law, or SanInsFoG, was passed in 2020. SanInsFoG changes insolvency law and introduces the new Act on the Stabilisation and Restructuring Framework for Businesses (StaRUG), which came into force on 1 January 2021.

StaRUG – The New German Restructuring Tool

The StaRUG is a pre-insolvency rescue procedure which allows a debtor to implement a restructuring plan outside formal insolvency proceedings.

General Features of StaRUG

• Rescue procedure in which a restructuring plan is put to a vote across separate classes of creditors.
• Available at an early stage outside of formal insolvency proceedings.
• Initiation requires the debtor’s notice to the court, combined with a restructuring concept and confirmation that the company is facing impending insolvency.
• Moratorium of maximum eight months possible.
• Dept-equity-swaps and other measures are possible in the plan.

High Degree of Flexibility

• Debtor may choose from a broad toolkit of individual instruments.
• Not all instruments require the court’s involvement.
• Debtor is free to choose who is included in the plan.

The restructuring process closes the gap between free restructuring and judicial insolvency proceedings. However, the method can only be used by companies that are threatened with insolvency, explain the Ecovis experts.

Is your company in crisis? We can support you in choosing the right restructuring instruments.

Nils Krause, Partner, Lawyer, ECOVIS Insolvenz und Sanierungs AG, Hamburg, Germany

Changes to the Insolvency Law

• Liability regimes for wrongful trading, which were scattered throughout corporate law, are harmonised in one central insolvency law provision (Par. 15b InsO).
• Debtors who wish to use insolvency in self-administration (“Insolvenz in Eigenverwaltung”) need to show to the satisfaction of the court that they have provided detailed debtor in possession planning with a six-month planning horizon.
• The mandatory insolvency case of over-indebtedness was reduced to a twelve-month (instead of 24 month) forward-looking going-concern prognosis.

For further information please contact:

Michael Busching, Partner, Lawyer, ECOVIS Insolvenz und Sanierungs AG, Hamburg, Germany
Email: michael.busching@ecovis.com

Nils Krause, Partner, Lawyer, ECOVIS Insolvenz und Sanierungs AG,
Hamburg, Germany
Email: nils.krause@ecovis.com

Tax Relief for Family Offices in Greece

Greece introduced a new business tool for the management of cash flow and family property assets in February 2021. It is regulated in the “family offices” law.

Family Offices in Greece

The new beneficial tax regime of the “family offices” law, Article 25 of Law L4778/2021, provides for the incorporation of a special purpose vehicle either through family members and/or other legal entities in which family members participate. It will be available only for individuals who have their tax residence in Greece.

For the implementation of a family office in Greece, the following requirements must be met:

• The family office must employ at least 5 people within a period of 12 months from its incorporation.
• The family office must spend at least EUR 1,000,000 in operating expenses annually, while its taxable profits will be determined on a cost-plus basis by applying a specific markup of 7% to its total expenses.

Our experienced team can support you in setting up a family office in Greece, as well as in all legal and tax aspects of real estate transactions.

Dimitrios Leventakis, Managing Director, ECOVIS HELLAS L.T.D., Athens, Greece

The regime’s tax features provide certainty for the corporate tax base, since any expense which is properly recorded under Greek accounting regulations is treated as tax deductible. At the same time, offices covered by the regime do not have to prepare transfer pricing documentation for their intra group transactions, explain the Ecovis experts.

Furthermore, family offices are not obliged to be registered with the commercial registry and to publish annual financial statements. Any transactions between the family office and the family members will also be out of the scope of VAT.

Digital Building Identification

A new electronic Digital Building Identification came into effect on 1 February 2021. The ID was introduced under Law 4495/2017 and further specified under Laws 4693/2019 and 4759/2020. It is mandatory for all buildings old and new, public and private. The ID will be required when buying or selling a property, issuing any building permit, and gaining an exemption from annual fines for additional constructions that took place before 2011 and have not been included in building permits.

For further information please contact:

Dimitrios Leventakis, Managing Director, ECOVIS HELLAS L.T.D., Athens, Greece
Email: dimitrios.leventakis@ecovis.gr

Anastasia Moschovaki, Tax Lawyer, ECOVIS HELLAS L.T.D., Athens, Greece
Email: moschovaki.anastasia@ecovis.gr