The court-fashioned doctrine of "equitable mootness" has frequently been applied to bar appeals of bankruptcy court orders under circumstances where reversal or modification of an order could jeopardize, for example, the implementation of a negotiated chapter 11 plan or related agreements and upset the expectations of third parties who have relied on the order.

For a foreign decree to be recognisable in Switzerland, it is according to the Swiss International Private Law Act, required that the foreign bankruptcy decree is enforceable in the state where it was issued, and there must not be any grounds for refusing recognition, e.g. a violation of Swiss public policy. Furthermore, the decision must have been issued either in the state where the debtor has its seat or domicile or in the state where the debtor has its centre of main interests.

If bankruptcy proceedings are commenced against a debtor or if a debtor enters into a court-approved composition agreement with an assignment of all of its assets, transactions executed by the debtor during the last five years are subject to scrutiny.

The purpose of claw back claims is to recover assets extracted from or given away by an insolvent debtor for the benefit of its insolvency estate and ultimately its creditors. Transactions may be subject to claw back actions if:

1.1 Are there international treaties and/or cross-border instruments applicable?

The restructuring Q&A provides a comprehensive overview of some of the key points of law and practice of restructuring in Switzerland.

1.1 What formal insolvency proceedings are available in Switzerland? 

To promote the finality and binding effect of confirmed chapter 11 plans, the Bankruptcy Code categorically prohibits any modification of a confirmed plan after it has been "substantially consummated." Stakeholders, however, sometimes attempt to skirt this prohibition by characterizing proposed changes to a substantially consummated chapter 11 plan as some other form of relief, such as modification of the confirmation order or a plan document, or reconsideration of the allowed amount of a claim. The U.S.

A foreign bankruptcy or insolvency decree has no effects on the debtor’s Swiss assets and on court proceedings against the debtor in Switzerland and a foreign bankruptcy administrator must not act on Swiss soil unless the foreign decree is formally recognized by a Swiss court. Such recognition may be initiated by the foreign bankruptcy administration, any creditor or the debtor itself. This three-step guide describes how a foreign bankruptcy decree can be recognized in Switzerland.

One year ago, we wrote that, unlike in 2019, when the large business bankruptcy landscape was generally shaped by economic, market, and leverage factors, the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the narrative in 2020. The pandemic may not have been responsible for every reversal of corporate fortune in 2020, but it weighed heavily on the scale, particularly for companies in the energy, retail, restaurant, entertainment, health care, travel, and hospitality industries.

In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit made headlines when it ruled that creditors' state law fraudulent transfer claims arising from the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of Tribune Co. ("Tribune") were preempted by the safe harbor for certain securities, commodity, or forward contract payments set forth in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. In that ruling, In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., 946 F.3d 66 (2d Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 209 L. Ed. 2d 568 (U.S. Apr.

Pre-packs, known as an effective restructuring measure from other jurisdictions, are also permissible in Switzerland.

What is a pre-pack?