The decision handed down in Re A Company [2024] EWHC 2656 (Ch) has provided new insight on what constitutes "genuine and serious" cross-claim for the purposes of securing an injunction to restrain presentation of a winding up petition.
Background
The bankruptcy court presiding over the FTX Trading bankruptcy last month issued a memorandum opinion addressing valuation of cryptocurrency-based claims and how to “calculate a reasonable discount to be applied to the Petition Date market price” for certain cryptocurrency tokens.
This article was first published by Insol World Magazine in Q1 of 2024.
Insolvency office-holders in the UK and elsewhere frequently rely upon litigation funders to finance their legal proceedings and, accordingly, developments in the funding market are of keen interest to insolvency professionals.
The number of company insolvencies in 2023 increased by over a third compared to 2022. The hospitality sector was particularly badly affected, with 53% more insolvencies than in 2022.
It appears that 2024 will be similarly challenging for companies in the hospitality sector. The Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) has set out the main challenges faced by the industry, including increased energy and labour costs, and the VAT rate reverting to 13.5% after having been reduced to 9% during the covid-19 pandemic.
The High Court has reaffirmed the test to be applied in considering an application to dismiss a bankruptcy summons grounded on a judgment.
The bankruptcy process in Ireland involves multiple steps and the debtor can seek to bring it to a halt at each step. Debtors often seek to rerun effectively the same arguments at each step, ignoring previous findings by the courts. One such step is an application to dismiss a bankruptcy summons.
An analysis of recent statistics show what the Insolvency and Tax Disputes teams at Mishcon de Reya have long experienced – that HMRC is not in the habit of overlooking an outstanding debt.
Who owns cryptocurrency held by a cryptocurrency exchange? Do the cryptocurrency assets belong to the customers who deposited the crypto with the exchange, or do the cryptocurrency assets belong to the exchange itself? The answer to this question will have huge significance, both in terms of creditor recoveries as well as preferential transfer liability exposure.
On Wednesday 27 September 2023, Mishcon de Reya hosted the first in a new series of Disputes Essentials breakfast seminars, which aim to provide the latest updates and practical insights on essential dispute-related topics.
In this second part of our blog exploring the various issues courts need to address in applying the Bankruptcy Code to cryptocurrency, we expand upon our roadmap.
Many authorities and commentators have considered cryptocurrencies, and the blockchains that undergird them, as a potentially disruptive force in the financial industry. Now, that disruption has made its way to a different side of finance—bankruptcy, and during the past year, the United States bankruptcy courts have had to confront many unexpected challenges involved in dealing with cryptocurrency.