Committee Articles

A Letter from Your Co-chairs

As the U.S. economy continues to limp along, six years after the official end of the Great Recession, it has become painfully clear that the world economy is highly interdependent. The ability of any one country to improve its own lot is limited by the conditions in other countries and the actions (or lack of actions) being taken in those countries. This is true not only of regulators and central bank officials, but of companies and industries as well: The U.S.

Legislative Update: European Edition

Europe has struggled during the last several years to triage a long series of critical blows to the economies of the 28 countries that comprise the European Union, as well as the collective viability of the 19 eurozone economies. Here we provide a snapshot of some recent changes implemented by certain European nations aimed at modernizing their respective insolvency laws to promote rehabilitation of ailing enterprises wherever possible and to level the playing field for stakeholders. 

A Note from the Co-chairs

Greetings! Welcome to the October newsletter for the International Committee. We trust you will find it informative and useful.

As described below, we have partnered with the Secured Credit Committee for a presentation at the Winter Leadership Conference. Please consider attending the WLC. Not only is our panel certain to be entertaining, but the WLC provides a great opportunity to network and socialize with your colleagues throughout the industry.

The View from Up North: The Collapse of Commodity Prices and the...

The oil boom is over. This is not an earth-shattering statement, given that we are now nearly a year into the precipitous price collapse of oil, which began in November 2014, with the price for a barrel of WTI crude oil falling from the $100 region to the $40-$50 range recently. With lots of supply, sketchy demand, and only small and slow cut backs in production, it is unclear (read: unlikely) whether oil prices will rise any time soon.

Filing in Your “Home” Country Doesn’t Mean You Will Get Instant R...

A recent foreign recognition of a bankruptcy proceeding case out of Nova Scotia, Canada, has brought to light the situation where a Canadian company moves to the U.S., seeks protection under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, and then seeks to impose that stay on creditors from its former home. Not surprisingly, it didn’t get very far with the Canadian court.

Nortel: The Courts’ Creative Cross-Border Solution

"The Court is convinced that where, as here, operating entities in an integrated, multi-national enterprise developed assets in common, there is nothing in the law or facts giving any of those entities certain and calculable claims to the proceeds from the liquidation of those assets in an enterprise-wide insolvency, adopting a pro rata allocation approach, which recognizes inter-company and settlement related claims and cash in hand, yields the most accepta

Views from Asia

Editor's note:  Following is an article by Robin Darton of Tanner De Witt (an established, independent Hong Kong law firm), addressing issues in his home venue of Hong Kong. Robin is particularly well suited to the task,having practiced for over 20 years as a solicitor in Hong Kong in litigation and other contentious issues, with an emphasis on contentious insolvency and restructuring matters in the UK, Hong Kong and the Asia region. TAB