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The biggest reform of UK insolvency law for more than a decade was rushed through Parliament and enacted on June 26, as the coronavirus lockdown is expected to cause a wave of defaults across the economy, reports Jon Hay. The law’s complexity and the haste of its preparation have left restructuring experts chewing over many aspects where they foresee risks of unintended consequences — but also eager to try out some of the law’s new powers.

Société Générale and Natixis may face more questions over their equity derivatives businesses when they release their second-quarter results. The issue is whether their structured products are inherently problematic or simply suffered from freak events.

Bank of America hopes that a new management team built on a culture of intensity will enable it to meet its top three goal in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, writes David Rothnie.

The shock resignation of the governor of Ukraine’s central bank on Wednesday night led the sovereign to pull its much-anticipated Eurobond, which had priced just moments before. As investors grow more unsettled, experts fear for the sovereign’s access to institutional funding and capital markets, writes Mariam Meskin.

Barclays has appointed two new chairs of its leveraged finance and sponsors business, with Chris Turner relocating to New York to become chairman of global leveraged finance.

Crédit Agricole has appointed Mariano Goldfischer, formerly in charge of global syndicate, to be head of global markets for the UK.

Samantha Huggins has joined BTIG, in the latest hire by the firm for its equities team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In the latest sign that the UK’s capital markets will diverge from the EU’s next year, the head of the European Commission’s task force for relations with the UK, Michel Barnier, called the UK’s demands regarding financial services as “unacceptable”.

Sir Ronald Cohen, one of the UK’s foremost private equity entrepreneurs, believes the Covid-19 crisis is an opportunity to transform western capitalism into a socially responsible enterprise that values a company’s impact on society as much as its profits. Cohen talks to GlobalCapital about the tremendous challenges facing the global economy, and how it can be transformed for the better.

Post-crisis reforms have broadly succeeded in ending the concept of ‘too big to fail’, according to the Financial Stability Board, which argued in a report on Sunday that total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) rules were making the global banking system more efficient.

DirectBooks, which plans to bring a new issuance platform for bond markets, has not ruled out the possibility of a partnership with other providers.

The UK’s new insolvency law came into force on Friday, and lawyers have been spending the weekend picking through its 250 pages to understand the implications. While some have welcomed it, others pointed out that in its haste to push it through Parliament, the government has introduced several changes that skew the balance between various kinds of lenders which hitherto had been treated equally.