Currently, Ukrainian legislation does not provide for a separate “pre-pack proceeding” as outlined in the draft EU directive for harmonising insolvency law (“Directive Proposal”). However, selling a business is a legally feasible option under the Ukrainian Bankruptcy Code and related laws, both in a pre-bankruptcy phase and during bankruptcy proceeding.

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.

In response to the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers very quickly started working on improving the legal framework to enhance existing and develop new restructuring instruments. Contrary to expectations, not that many restructurings actually took place in 2020, likely because of support made available to businesses.

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.

In May 2020 three years have passed[1] since Ukraine received the last funding of nearly USD 1 billion from the International Monetary Fund (the “IMF”). The funding that the IMF allocated to Ukraine was nearly four times larger than previous funding.

In 2016, the Ukrainian parliament passed the Law on Financial Restructuring (the Financial Restructuring Law) with the aim of creating a workable procedure for voluntarily restructuring debt obligations of Ukrainian borrowers. Technically, the Financial Restructuring Law became effective on 19 October 2016 but did not become operational because the required bodies envisaged in the Financial Restructuring Law were not in place.

In 2016, the Ukrainian parliament passed the Law on Financial Restructuring (the "Financial Restructuring Law") with the aim of creating a workable procedure for voluntarily restructuring debt obligations of Ukrainian borrowers. Technically, the Financial Restructuring Law became effective on 19 October 2016 but did not become operational because the required bodies envisaged in the Financial Restructuring Law were not in place.

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

Starting from 22 September 2012, the beneficial owners (aka controllers), substantial shareholders, and senior executive officers of Ukrainian commercial banks could face personal financial liability for the insolvency of banks during liquidation.