The Brazilian Bankruptcy Law — enacted in February 2005 — has not adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law regarding transnational insolvency. In fact, Brazilian law is laconic in this regard and only says that the court of the place where the debtor has its main establishment or where the branch of a foreign company is located is the competent court to grant judicial reorganization or to declare the debtor bankrupt (art. 3º).

The recent decision by the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) in Canada v Callidus Capital Corporation[1] has turned on its head the commonly understood ordering of priorities amongst secured creditors and the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) “deemed trust” claims in and out of bankruptcy proceedings.

Weeks before Hanjin Shipping sought protection from its creditors in Korea, I got an unexpected call: “Tally, I think one of the world’s largest shipping companies is going to file for bankruptcy in Korea and seek chapter 15 protection in New York, are you up for being my local counsel?” This was in early August 2016, and my life has not been the same since.

More than a decade after chapter 15 was added to the Bankruptcy Code,[1] there has been an influx of large, complex cases brought by foreign representatives in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Since the seminal decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Metcalfe & Mansfield Alternative Investment II Corp. (“Metcalfe”) in 2008, third party releases have been part of the restructuring landscape. Metcalfe involved the asset back commercial paper crisis that resulted from the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

This article addresses foreign discovery pursuant to Rule 2004 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (the “Bankruptcy Rules”) and the application of the Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters (the “Hague Convention” or the “Convention”) to such discovery. It concludes that discovery under the Hague Convention, including Bankruptcy Rule 2004 discovery, may end up being a drawn-out and difficult process.

Although 2016 has lacked the massive, transnational bankruptcies that the Great Recession gave us, it has provided its own poignant reminders of how interconnected countries and economies can be. The outcome of the Brexit vote caused waves as companies tried to figure out how, or if, they could invest in the EU and the U.K. in the future. The outcome of the U.S.

In what is often viewed a rudimentary inquiry, recognition of foreign insolvency proceedings under chapter 15 can be a closely scrutinized affair. In In re Creative Finance Ltd. (In Liquidation), 543 B.R. 498 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2016), Judge Robert E.

[1]Under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, recognition of a foreign proceeding is required to obtain a stay of proceeding against the property of the foreign debtor located in the United States, to entrust such property to the representative of the foreign debtor, and to receive other important protections and rights.

This article outlines the legislative framework behind and briefly describes the process of a bankruptcy proceeding,[1] the Canadian equivalent of a chapter 7 filing in the U.S. Proposals under the BIA and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the Canadian equivalents to a chapter 11 filing in the U.S., will be dealt with in a subsequent article.