Ms Deirdre O'Higgins:

I will start. The official position on this directive is not yet finalised. We are still going through it. We are analysing exactly what is there and taking account of views of stakeholders as they come into us. We would have some initial concerns in the area that the European Commission is trying to legislate for things that very often we leave to the discretion of the courts or parties. They are requiring that we put something in our statute to say that new financing is automatically protected. How it operates in practice in an examinership is something that examiners will be the best people to talk about in detail. We do not require in law at the moment that new finance is given automatic protection. If one looks at it practically, with the chances of somebody investing in a company in difficulty and not having any idea that they are going to get that money back, it may not make that much difference in practice but putting it in law straitjackets us into an area that we might not want to be in.

The second area I would have a concern about is the absolute priority test which is required before one can have a cross-class cram-down. Again, in practice, we do not know if that makes much difference. We will be talking to stakeholders about what that actually means. We will be asked to put something into law to say that in the event of an examinership, one cannot seek to get debt write down from dissenting creditors who are higher up the list of rankings of creditors. One has to settle their rights before one could look at offering anything to people lower down the line. We would have a question mark on what impact that might have on examinerships, whether it could force companies into liquidation that might otherwise not go into liquidation. That is something we will be dealing in detail with the stakeholders.

These are two main concerns I would have personally with the directive at this point but let me state that we do not have an official position as of yet.