The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is a public health challenge that has affected all of us globally. It has required governments, and particularly healthcare systems, to respond swiftly and in a coordinated way to ensure that they are properly mitigating and responding to the evolving situation to ensure the wellbeing of their citizens.
Covid-19 was declared a public health emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organisation on 30 January 2020. Speaking at a Covid-19 media briefing on 2 March 2020, the Director General of WHO emphasised that the virus is capable of community transmission but can be contained with the right measures.
This is above all a human and social crisis, necessitating some significant changes in the way everyone goes about their daily lives. As efforts to manage the spread radiate across the world, the impact to businesses and economies has become increasingly significant.
Our clients are assessing (as we are ourselves), on a continuous basis, how to address the threat posed by Covid-19 to their workforce, customers, suppliers and wider stakeholders. Financial markets are experiencing considerable turbulence. The situation has the potential to generate both a supply-side and a demand-side shock.
Every organisation will have individual and sectoral considerations relevant to their particular circumstances, and each organisation will likely approach this evolving situation through their business continuity plan.
However, these plans may not foresee a situation of this complexity, magnitude and duration.
The topics covered below offers some practical guidance around how organisations might approach the impact of Covid-19 from a governance and risk perspective, together with some answers to some of the legal questions which we have been receiving over the last few weeks.
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As Covid-19 continues to spread across the region, the likelihood of your organisation being directly impacted by the outbreak (e.g. an infected customer, employee, etc.) also increases. Each organisation should ensure it has in place a robust organisational resilience plan which addresses a number of issues.
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, the Luxembourg government, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, the ODL and the SNCI, introduced a package of temporary and targeted measures to support businesses and liberal professionals through this period of disruption.
With more diagnoses of Covid-19 occurring daily in Luxembourg, employers should prepare for how they will respond to an outbreak. Here we identify the key legal issues and the practical steps employers can take.
This section provides an overview of the impact Covid-19 is having on contractual law.
This section provides an overview of the information to be disclosed by companies, the legal and practical challenges to the holding of general and board meetings and the impact on M&A transactions, as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The CSSF has been very active further to the unravelling of Covid-19 and its impact on the Luxembourg financial sector. Our guide provides an overview of the measures which have already been taken as well as some inside information regarding the topics which are currently under discussion.
This section provides an overview on:
Each organisation should have in place a crisis management policy to ensure that key employees and management are familiar with its operation.
