Introduction
Today, the UK Supreme Court considered for the first time the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of a company’s directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.
On 1 January 2021, the StaRUG, which goes back to an EU directive, came into force and wants to provide a `second chance for businesses. The abbreviation stands for 'Unternehmensstabilisierungs- und –restrukturierungsgesetz' ('Corporate Stabilisation and Restructuring Act').
With this overview, we want to provide you with a high-level overview of the StaRUG on the following main issues:
The High Court in London gave judgment on Friday, 3 July 2020 on the relative ranking of over $10 billion of subordinated liabilities in the administrations of two entities in the Lehman Brothers group.
The recent decisions in Re MF Global UK Ltd and Re Omni Trustees Ltd give conflicting views as to whether section 236 of the Insolvency Act 1986 has extra-territorial effect. In this article, we look at the reasoning in the two judgments and discuss a possible further argument for extra-territorial effect.
The conflicting rulings on section 236