On 6 April 2017, together with the new Insolvency Rules (England and Wales) 2016, the Investment Bank (Amendment of Definition) and Special Administration (Amendment) Regulations 2017 (the “Regulations”) will come into force.
These regulations follow an independent review of the special administration regime, undertaken by Peter Bloxham during 2013, assessing the success of the special administration regime and making recommendations of possible changes that may improve the operation and robustness of the regime.
Case law on wrongful trading has developed significantly over the past two years, with the cases of Ralls Buildersand Brooksincreasing judicial consideration of the conduct of directors in the period preceding an insolvency.
The Ministry of Justice has recently published its review of the introduction of Employment Tribunal (‘ET’) fees. The fees were first introduced 2013 and many groups have raised concerns that they are a potentially serious barrier to bringing claims in the ET, particularly for less well off workers and those who have just lost their jobs.
A director who breaches the obligations and duties imposed on him by his office may be liable to compensate the company for breach of duty, may incur personal liability for the company’s debts, may also face criminal or civil penalties and may be disqualified from acting as a director. The position of the company director has never been the subject of more scrutiny than it is today.
The IECA has released its Master Netting Agreement, a state-of-the-art solution ensuring credit exposures are managed and netted under a single, integrated framework that is flexible and easy to implement.
A divided panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's ruling in In re: Philadelphia Newspapers, et. al. (3d. Cir., Case No. 09-4266) and held that secured creditors do not have a statutory right to credit bid their debt at a sale conducted under a plan of reorganization pursuant to which the debtor elects to provide the secured creditors with the "indubitable equivalent" of their secured claim.
With the increase in corporate bankruptcy filings over the past year, there have been some interesting bankruptcy court decisions that affect those of us on the front end in corporate lending. One recent case took up the question of whether a second lien is truly second -- and whether it is safe to expect that the terms of your intercreditor agreement will be enforced.
In an intercreditor agreement, the senior lender will usually require that the junior lender waive several of its rights, including
Credit bidding has become a really hot issue recently. For those of us who don't normally work on bankruptcy matters, the right to credit bid is an important right that secured lenders usually have in a bankruptcy proceeding. If you're the senior secured lender and you want to buy the company's assets in a bankruptcy sale, you can show up at the auction and, instead of bidding cash, you can place credit bids.
In re Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Case No. 08-13555 et seq. (JMP)(jointly administered)
In this US decision, the Bankruptcy Court held that the "safe harbour" protections of the US Bankruptcy Code only protect a non-defaulting party's right to liquidate, terminate or accelerate a swap, to offset and to net termination values and payment amounts and to foreclose on collateral, but do not permit the withholding of performance under a swap if the swap is not terminated.