With an increase in airline restructuring activity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, aircraft financiers, lessors and their lawyers around the world have been analysing whether a restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (a ‘Plan’) can be used by debtors to modify, without the creditors’ consent, their obligations under certain leases and security agreements to which the Cape Town Convention applies.

The Supreme Court may revisit two of the many questions left open by its much-discussed decision in Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct. 2594 (2011), an opinion famous not only for its subject – the estate of the late actress and model Anna Nicole Smith – but also for redefining the allocation of judicial authority between an Article III federal district court and a bankruptcy court. Appellants have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v.