THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE: Promise and Perils of Involuntary Insolvency Proceedings (citation: Tally M. Wiener and Adrian J. Walters, Promise and Perils of Involuntary Insolvency Proceedings, XXXI ABI Journal 3, 46-47, 122, April 2012) - Tally M. Wiener and Adrian J. Walters

EUROPEAN UPDATE: Restructuring U.K. Landlord Liabilities: Company Voluntary Arrangement (citation: Adam Gallagher and Margaret Rhodes, Restructuring U.K. Landlord Liabilities: Company Voluntary Arrangement, XXXI ABI Journal 3, 44-45, 108-109, April 2012) - Adam Gallagher and Margaret Rhodes

Who’s Afraid of Sovereign Debt? - Ian G. Williams, Jeffrey C. Carhart, Alan J. Carr, Jo Ann J. Brighton, Dr. Annerose Tashiro

For close on twenty years, Germany insolvency law has been one of the consistently and heavily criticised fields of German federal legislation. In the nineties it was deemed necessary to replace the Konkursordnung (Bankruptcy Code) enacted by KaiserWilhelm I by a modern Act, which would take into account the changes in the economic realities that had come about since the industrial revolution and would establish insolvency proceedings as a tool for properly organised corporate restructurings.

The German Federal Ministry of Justice recently published a proposal to amend the German Insolvency Code to provide substantial additional clarity to the rights of parties in the event of the insolvency of a German licensor of intellectual property.

Recent court decisions by the District Court of Frankfurt am Main and the Court of Appeals of Frankfurt am Main are forcing market participants to adjust their expectations regarding the applicability of the German Bondholder Act of 2009 to restructurings of German law-governed bonds issued prior to August 5, 2009. The attached memorandum summarizes the implications of the Courts' decisions.

Lomas and others (together, the Joint Administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe)) v JFB Firth Rixson Inc and others and ISDA as intervenor [2012] EWCA Civ 419

 

Summary

Registering one’s claims in insolvency proceedings can be fraught with risk. Often, creditors who register their receivables vis-àvis the debtor under the Insolvency Act are unaware of the dangerous consequences of their seemingly innocuous registration of claims.

In 1895, writing in a Scottish law journal, the doyen of Dutch private international law, Professor Josephus Jitta, put forward three possibilities for progress in the bankruptcy world. The first was to have a world law, passed by a federal parliament assembled for that purpose, although he considered this to be an unattainable objective. The second was the assimilation of bankruptcy rules through the elaboration of a common set of rules to be adopted by domestic legislators.

Those pesky billions in the second Greek bailout, they keep multiplying! The folks over at the Financial Times Brussels blog have already tried to explain what is really going on with the second Greek bailout’s size, length and the contribution division between the euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund. We thought we’d give it a crack too, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported. There are three issues we want to address: one, the actual size of the Greek bailout. Hint: It’s not €130 billion but €138.2 billion.