Except for disastrous fires that sparked the largest bankruptcy filing of the year, liabilities arising from the opioid crisis, the fallout from price-fixing, and corporate restructuring shenanigans, economic, market, and leverage factors generally shaped the large corporate bankruptcy landscape in 2019. California electric utility PG&E Corp.
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeal reconfirmed that the Duomatic principle can only apply where all shareholders have approved the relevant act of the company. It is not enough that a relevant individual would have approved the act had they known about it: Dickinson v NAL Realisations (Staffordshire) Ltd [2019] EWCA CIV 2146.
Section 510(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides a mechanism designed to preserve the creditor/shareholder risk allocation paradigm by categorically subordinating most types of claims asserted against a debtor by equity holders. However, courts do not always agree on the scope of the provision in attempting to implement its underlying policy objectives. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently examined the broad reach of section 510(b) in In re Linn Energy, 936 F.3d 334 (5th Cir. 2019).
The High Court has ordered a liquidator's firm to pay a proportion of the costs incurred by successful defendants following judgment in proceedings commenced by a claimant company in liquidation.
The High Court has ordered a liquidator’s firm to pay a proportion of the costs incurred by successful defendants following judgment in proceedings commenced by a claimant company in liquidation.
Revisiting over 150 years of case law, the High Court has resolved a question on which both the courts and textbooks had given conflicting answers: is a director's liability for payment of a dividend which is unlawful as a result of incorrect accounts fault-based or strict?
The ability of a bankruptcy trustee to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when an otherwise avoidable transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. Several bankruptcy and appellate courts have addressed this issue in recent years, with inconsistent results.
Rumors of another recession multiplied as the tumultuous second year of the Trump administration came to a close. Highlights of 2018 included a simmering trade war with China; political upheaval after the House of Representatives was retaken by Democrats in the midterm elections; mayhem in financial markets; and, in December, the beginning of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, triggered by lawmakers’ refusal to provide $5.7 billion in funding for a U.S.-Mexican border wall.
In the wake of scandal-driven bankruptcies filed by nearly 20 U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses and religious orders, scrutiny has been increasingly brought to bear on the benefits and burdens that federal bankruptcy laws offer to eleemosynary (nonprofit) corporations. Nonprofits seek bankruptcy protection for a variety of reasons.
In the wake of scandal-driven bankruptcies filed by nearly 20 U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses and religious orders, scrutiny has been increasingly brought to bear on the benefits and burdens that federal bankruptcy laws offer to eleemosynary (nonprofit) corporations. Nonprofits seek bankruptcy protection for a variety of reasons.