Chapter 15 Resource Articles

In assisting companies doing business with their customers and the supply chain, we have noted that companies increasingly propose to their customers incentives to purchase goods, often in the form of rebates and discounts.

There may be circumstances where setting off the obligation to pay such incentives owed to a customer against the customer’s accounts receivable owed by the customer is necessary to avoid or reduce risk. The need for this “remedy” is exacerbated during periods of financial and market uncertainty.

In a Chapter 15 procedure in Delaware, a disgruntled “creditor” sued the Chapter 15 UK-based “foreign representatives” in their individual capacities. The case is McKillen v. Wallace (In re IBRC), No. 18-1797, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166153 (D. Del. Sept. 27, 2019). Before administrators or liquidators outside the US become concerned about liability for serving as foreign representatives in Chapter 15 cases, read on.

In the Chapter 15 proceedings of Energy Coal S.p.A., the Delaware Bankruptcy Court required a U.S. creditor to recover its claim in Italy.

Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code, which is based on UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency, was enacted in 2005 to provide an “effective mechanism” for dealing with cross-border insolvency cases.

Some of Chapter 15’s express objectives are “greater legal certainty for trade and investment” and the “fair and efficient administration of cross-border insolvencies that protects the interests of all creditors and other interested entities, including the debtor.