There has been no shortage of high-profile insolvencies in the crypto market in recent months across a range of market participants and geographies. These include the US Chapter 11 and Bahamas provisional liquidation of FTX as well as the US Chapter 11 filings of BlockFi, Singapore-based crypto hedge fund ThreeArrows Capital, US-based lenders Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, US-based crypto mining data centre Compute North and German crypto bank Nuri.

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the High Court was right to restrict the assistance an English court could give to a Russian trustee in bankruptcy at common law, refusing to allow immoveable property situated in England to be administered by the trustee as part of the foreign bankruptcy proceedings: Kireeva v Bedzhamov [2022] EWCA Civ 35.

The High Court has ruled that a claim for a declaration regarding a borrower’s obligations to provide information under a facility agreement was not a claim which itself derived from borrower’s French insolvency proceedings for the purposes of Article 6(1) of the Recast European Insolvency Regulation (EU) 2015/848 (the “Recast Insolvency Regulation”).

The High Court has held that an examination conducted pursuant to an order made under s.236 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (“IA”) did not attract witness immunity. The result was that the joint liquidators were permitted to amend their particulars of claim to plead a claim for breach of duty relating to false statements made in the course of the examination: Mitchell v Al Jaber [2021] EWHC 912 (Ch).

The Court of Appeal has struck out Quincecare duty and dishonest assistance claims brought by the liquidators of a company running a Ponzi scheme against a correspondent bank that operated various accounts for the company.

From 31 December 2020, the European Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings (the “EIR”) ceased to apply in the UK. As a result:

At 11pm on 31 December 2020, the UK left the European single market at the end of the transition period agreed as part of the 2019 Withdrawal Agreement. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement that was reached on Christmas Eve made no provision for continued recognition of, or co-operation in, insolvency and restructuring proceedings. This briefing considers the implications of this and we examine how:

The High Court has dismissed a strike out application in respect of a claim brought under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (“IA 1986”) in respect of an alleged transaction defrauding creditors, holding that it is not necessary to prove a freestanding connection between the defendant and England, separate from the litigation itself, in order to obtain relief: Suppipat v Narongdej [2020] EWHC 3191 (Comm).

The High Court has ruled that directors breached their duties by taking up the company’s business opportunity for their own benefit, even if the company was unable to take up that opportunity by reason of its financial position: Davies v Ford & Ors [2020] EWHC 686.

The High Court has expedited a trial at which it would be determined whether luxury car manufacturer McLaren Group could obtain the release of certain security for the benefit of its senior noteholders, failing which a financial restructuring which was contingent on that release could not be implemented: McLaren Holdings Ltd v US Bank Trustees Ltd [2020] EWHC 1892 (Ch). The court concluded that, absent determination of the proceedings within one month, McLaren Group would have no choice but to enter an insolvency process and that this justified expedition in this case.