A recent conference chaired by Glen Flannery, a partner in our Restructuring & Insolvency Group, highlighted an abundance of developments in European restructuring and insolvency laws. These include a baby step towards harmonisation of European insolvency laws as part of the EU’s drive to achieve a capital markets union, an explosion of cases in the commodities sector, more English schemes for foreign companies, a rapid rise in insolvency litigation finance, new laws for dealing with insolvent enterprise groups, and fresh interest in developing a global insolvency convention.

Welcome to issue 6 of Norton Rose Fulbright’s International arbitration report. In this issue, we provide an overview of the investment provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, including its dispute settlement mechanisms, and discuss the early days of the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. We have practical guides to the English law of privilege, and on the treatment of the principles of res judicata and issue estoppel in arbitration. Read more.

USA: mediation in corporate insolvency is rising. In the world of rescue and insolvency a mediator is not a stranger. In the USA mediation is frequently used in insolvency procedures, including Chapter 11 cases.1 In 2015, for complex multi-party restructurings it has been contended that in the USA ‘... the use of mediation to reach consensual plans of reorganisation, while not standard protocol in cases, has become common and is no longer controversial’.

Taking a page from the Hollywood tabloids, recent deal press has been overtaken by a stream of reported breakups, real or speculated. With The Wall Street Journal recently citing broken deal values in excess of $300 billion so far in 2016, we take a closer look at the M&A environment to look for any macro trends that may be contributing to these record numbers. Read more.

Purchase agreements in many private company transactions contain some form of two seemingly unrelated provisions: (1) an agreement by the sellers to indemnify the buyer for certain losses arising out of breaches of representations and warranties made by the sellers and (2) an agreement by the buyer to maintain or assume the rights of former directors and officers of the target contained in the target’s organizational documents to indemnification and advancement of expenses for actions taken prior to closing.Read more.

It was 1978, Demand for oil was high, supply appeared tight and governments were beginning to stockpile supplies in order to avoid a repeat of the supply crisis of 1973 when Saudi Arabia cut production to support oil price. That was the year that this (then) newly married, newly qualified US attorney-at-law relocated to England and took up her first oil industry employment. The oil price was around $14 per barrel.

On April 4, 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed and temporary regulations (the “Inversion Regulations”) addressing so-called inversion transactions. In general, the Inversion Regulations: Adopt, with certain modifications, the rules described in Notice 2014-52 (the “First Notice”) and Notice 2015-79 (the “Second Notice”); and Add a new (and unexpected) rule aimed at so-called (by the Treasury) “serial inverters.” Read more. (Subscription required.)

The Federal Reserve and the FDIC today provided feedback on the 2015 resolution plans filed by the eight “first-wave” domestic filers, and issued Guidance to govern their 2017 resolution plans. Most significantly, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC jointly determined that the resolution plans of five financial companies were “not credible” as required by the joint resolution planning rule, 12 C.F.R. Parts 243 and 381.

On April 4, 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) proposed new regulations that, if finalized, would dramatically change how debt instruments issued between related parties are treated and analyzed (the “Proposed Regulations”). The Proposed Regulations are part of an effort to make so-called “inversion” transactions less attractive to U.S. corporations seeking to combine with a foreign-parented group, and were issued at the same time as other significant regulations specifically addressing inversions.

On March 24, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion, concluding that the “safe harbor” provision of the Bankruptcy Code for settlement payments and payments in connection with a securities contract bars fraudulent conveyance claims brought not only by a bankruptcy “trustee” (as stated in Section 546(e) of the Code), but also by creditors seeking to assert state law claims that Section 544 of the Code empowers a bankruptcy trustee to bring. In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., No. 13-3992, slip op. (2d Cir. Mar.