Corporate Law

The COVID-19 pandemic affect billions of people worldwide and has an increasingly devastating impact on the economy.

Companies are facing new challenges and the need for practical legal advice is more important than ever. Legal concerns relate to health restrictions, corporate governance, contracts, business transactions, insurance, insolvency and others.

In order to best assist our clients in these difficult times, we have prepared a summary of the main issues that businesses may face as a result of COVID-19.

In the unprecedented context of the health crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, private equity transactions slowed down sharply. Many funds have opted for a strategy aimed at focusing on their existing investment portfolio and supporting their investments to meet increased cash flow requirements.

This crisis also provides an opportunity to take a look back at a particularly dynamic year in 2019 for the French private equity investment market and to identify trends, both in terms of the investment methods hitherto favored by investors and in terms of the protection afforded to investors.

In the context of the Covid-19 epidemic and its impact on the European Union’s economy, the European Commission published on March 26, 2020 a communication designed to alert Member States to the need to protect strategic European assets from foreign direct investments.

While reaffirming the European Union’s openness to foreign investments, the European Commission encourages Member States to protect assets that cover the health needs of their citizens and, more generally, to safeguard Europe’s strategic capacities.

Adopted in furtherance of the Emergency Law No. 2020-290 of March 23, 2020 to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic, Ordinance No. 2020-318 dated March 25, 2020 adapting the rules relating to the preparation, closing, audit, review, approval and publication of accounts and other documents and information that private law legal persons and entities without legal personality are required to file or publish in the context of the covid-19 epidemic has introduced temporary exceptional derogations, particularly with regard to the approval of accounts.

“France’s attractiveness improved further in 2018, despite the slowdown in global growth, economic tensions and rising protectionism”. This assessment, mentioned in the 2018 annual report on foreign investment in France issued by Business France (French Agency responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses and facilitating international investment in France) confirms France’s enhanced attractiveness in 2018.

Attractiveness, however, does not mean lack of control, provided that a simple and fast legal framework is offered to foreign investors.

The French Anti-Corruption Agency, created by Law No. 2016-1691 of December 9, 2016 on transparency, fight against corruption and modernization of the economy, commonly referred to as the “Sapin II Law”, has recently supplemented its recommendations by issuing a best practice guide for M&A transactions.