Contract Natural Gas Limited v ZOG Energy Ltd [1] is the first post-Enterprise Act 2002 judgment on the effect of administration on limitation. After reviewing existing authority and statute, the Court confirmed that (among other things) time does not stop running for limitation purposes when a company enters a post-Enterprise Act administration. Fraser Ritson, Aziz Abdul and Brian Rostron acted for Joshua Dwyer and William Wright in their capacity as the joint liquidators of Contract Natural Gas Limited – in Liquidation.

The U.K. Financial Services and Markets Act 2023

KARL CLOWRY, SEÁN MCGUINNESS, AND AZIZ ABDUL LOOK TO THE LESSONS FOR SHAREHOLDERS, CREDITORS AND ADMINISTRATORS FROM THE FIRST CREDITOR LED RESTRUCTURING PLAN.

The Good Box Co Labs Limited (in Administration) case demonstrates once more the viability of the process for the mid-market and continues a trend of RPs being used by a determined creditor / shareholder constituency to rescue an equity investment within an existing corporate group. In short, the mid-market RP is still a highly situational, albeit flexible, tool."

The U.K. government has published its much-anticipated proposals for regulating the cryptoasset industry. These proposals, currently in the form of a consultation, will see many (but not all) cryptoasset-related activities being brought within the regulatory perimeter for financial services in the U.K.

On October 17, 2022, Justice Andrea Masley of the NY Supreme Court issued a decision and order denying all but one of the motion to dismiss claims filed by Boardriders, Oaktree Capital (an equity holder, term lender, and “Sponsor” under the credit agreement), and an ad hoc group of lenders (the “Participating Lenders”) that participated in an “uptiering” transaction that included new money investments and roll-ups of existing term loan debt into new priming debt that would sit at the top of the company’s capital structure.

On October 14, 2022, the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in Ultra Petroleum, granting favorable outcomes to “unimpaired” creditors that challenged the company’s plan of reorganization and argued for payment (i) of a ~$200 million make-whole and (ii) post-petition interest at the contractual rate, not the Federal Judgment Rate. At issue on appeal was the Chapter 11 plan proposed by the “massively solvent” debtors—Ultra Petroleum Corp. (HoldCo) and its affiliates, including subsidiary Ultra Resources, Inc.

On July 6, Delaware Bankruptcy Court Judge Craig T. Goldblatt issued a memorandum opinion in the bankruptcy cases of TPC Group, Inc., growing the corpus of recent court decisions tackling “uptiering” and other similar transactions that have been dubbed by some practitioners and investors as “creditor-on-creditor violence.” This topic has been a hot button issue for a few years, playing out in a number of high profile scenarios, from J.Crew and Travelport to Serta Simmons and TriMark, among others.

Introduction

Earlier this month, the English Insolvency and Companies Court (the “ICC”) made a limited civil restraint order against a shareholder who had repeatedly sought, unmeritoriously, to challenge the 2017 restructuring of Paragon Offshore plc (in liquidation) (“Paragon”) (Hammersley v Soden & Ors [2022] EWHC 223 (Ch)).

On 24 February, the Government published draft regulations that, if implemented, will impose new restrictions on pre-pack administration sales to connected parties. For all `substantial disposals' (which will include `pre-pack' sales) to connected parties, taking place within eight weeks of the administrators' appointment, the administrators will either need creditor consent or a report from an independent `evaluator'.

Context

On August 26, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the Bankruptcy Code does not require subordination agreements to be strictly enforced in order for a court to confirm a cramdown plan, so long as the plan does not discriminate unfairly.