On September 14, 2020, Thailand’s Central Bankruptcy Court approved Thai Airways to enter into a court-supervised business rehabilitation (restructuring). The airline’s creditors will now be able to submit formal claims for debts owed, within one month from when the court’s appointment of the plan preparer is published in the Government Gazette. Publication is expected in early October.  

The Myanmar Customs Department (MCD) organized another Intellectual Property Awareness and Product Identification Workshop at its Customs Training School in Yangon on August 6, 2020, for its frontline customs officers. Such workshops are held numerous times every year, serving as a platform for foreign brand owners and their local representatives to educate and update the enforcement officers on methods for differentiating their genuine products from counterfeits and imitations when inspecting suspicious shipments at ports of entry into the country.

After the COVID-19 outbreak, a number of business operators were forced to react to the situation by reducing the number of workers or staff they employed. For the labour courts and labour officers, one important point related to such reductions is whether employers have paid the correct amount of severance, remuneration in lieu of advance notice, and overtime payments to their employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in widespread economic turmoil, with quarantines, business closures, and precipitous declines in consumer and business spending causing momentous shifts in previously sound business models. This has already resulted in various business emergencies, from layoffs and broken supply chains to outright insolvency. This challenging environment seems to signal a bleak outlook for the foreseeable future, but distressed businesses—and their creditors—can take some comfort in knowing that bankruptcy laws around the world are designed for just such circumstances.