Western Europe

Switzerland is well known as an innovation-friendly jurisdiction, in particular in the financial sector. This is partly due to the technology-neutral and principle-based approach of its regulation, which has allowed the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and other Swiss authorities and self-regulatory organisations to flexibly address the challenges of emerging technology, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), being used in financial services. Furthermore, Swiss regulation typically aims to create a level playing field between traditional players and innovators, seeking to ensure that the goals of financial regulation are met regardless of the technology used in a business model.

Distressed companies are those facing financial crises not resolvable without a considerable recasting of the firm's operations, structures and finance. This can be brought about through a company's failure to make a substantial payment of principal or interest to a creditor. Distress can also be seen in terms of financial ratios, for example in terms of liquidity and longer-term solvency. The basic and most prevalent forms of corporate distress assessment are the cash flow and the balance sheet tests, which apply both to going concern and break up (insolvency) valuation. In terms of break up valuation, under the cash flow test, a company is insolvent when it is unable to pay its debts as they fall due. Under the balance sheet test, the entity is insolvent if the book value of its assets, as listed on the conventional balance sheet, is less than its reported liabilities. The notions of asset exchangeability/liquidity and time prospect of sale are of great importance, particularly for the balance sheet test, as the latter includes the assessment of assets' value, by definition (UK Insolvency Act, 1986, 123 [2]). In this article, we first present the international/UK insight and, then, the Cyprus position on the matter.

Like most financial engineering techniques, securitisation is not without risk. The complexity inherent in securitisation can impair investors' ability to monitor risk, and competitive securitisation markets are prone to sharp declines in underwriting standards. Furthermore, off-balance sheet accounting treatment for securitisations coupled with guarantees from the issuer can make it challenging to assess exposures, encouraging issuers to take on excessive credit risk. Even the most ardent advocates of securitisation would accept that securitisation played an important role in the US subprime mortgage crisis that led to the global financial crisis of 2008.