The recent decision in Re Astora Women’s Health LLC illustrates the importance of cross-border recognition of insolvency processes, highlighting the benefits of a joined-up global approach which recognises that modern business do not stop for international borders.
With Astora hot off the presses and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UNCITRAL Model Law on the horizon the team at SPB have taken stock of the cross-border recognition framework from the perspective of the UK and the US.
Astora
Even before chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code was enacted in 2005 to govern cross-border bankruptcy proceedings, the enforceability of a foreign court order approving a restructuring plan that modified or discharged U.S. law-governed debt was well recognized under principles of international comity. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently reaffirmed this concept in In re Modern Land (China) Co., Ltd., 641 B.R. 768 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2022).
A summary winding up is the procedure used to wind up a solvent Jersey company under the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 (the 1991 Law).
This guide examines the procedure for carrying out a summary winding up.
Steps
The steps necessary to carry out a summary winding up are as follows:
Cryptoassets are traded on a global basis. Indeed, the markets are even more global and constant than markets in more conventional financial instruments, rivalled only perhaps by the FX markets in their reach.
In recent years, Indonesian companies have shown both a greater willingness to use foreign restructuring processes, as well as a greater need to do so given the increasingly sophisticated financing structures and investor bases seen for Indonesian businesses. Some of the notable Chapter 15 protection cases include those involving the Duniatex Group in 2020, PT Bakrie Telecom Tbk in 2018, PT Bumi Resources Tbk in 2017, and Berau Capital Resources Pte Ltd (a Singapore SPV of PT Berau Coal Energy Tbk) in 2015.
Over the span of two weeks in July 2022, two of the largest retail-facing cryptocurrency platforms, Celsius and Voyager, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Judicial comments cast doubt on the ability to compromise US law-governed debt effectively based on Chapter 15 recognition alone.
En raison de la hausse du commerce mondial, la question du recouvrement international des créances ne peut être évitée.
The economic landscape continues to remain challenging, or, in some cases, looks to be getting worse, thereby impacting trading conditions across borders. It is likely that in most jurisdictions, trading conditions will worsen before they stabilise and, ultimately, improve.
With a marked increase in large-scale cross-border insolvency and restructuring proceedings in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere, there is a greater focus on principles of comity and co-operation between courts and collaboration between officeholders.