Key points
- Where main proceedings have been opened in one member state, secondary proceedings may be opened in another member state where the debtor has an establishment. The effects of the secondary proceedings shall be restricted to the assets in that territory.
- Local law and court discretion may apply to the opening of secondary proceedings and may be exercised, but these should not be discriminatory.
The Facts
Key points
Agreements relating to costs in the course of their office could not be set aside by liquidators subsequently appointed.
The facts
Key points
The court has jurisdiction to order the UK Registrar of Companies to replace previously filed administrators' proposals.
The Facts
The administrators of a company filed a statement of proposals with the Registrar but then sought to replace the proposals because they contained information that the company was obliged to keep confidential. The administrators argued that:
Key point
An English winding up does not cease to have effect when an overseas company is dissolved under the law of its state of incorporation.
The facts
Agrenco Madeira – Comercio Internacional LDA (the "Company") was incorporated under the laws of Portugal in March 2004. The Company presented a winding up petition in England in August 2009. Its centre of main interests was in Brazil and therefore the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings did not apply. The Company was wound up in England as an unregistered company in October 2009.
Key point
Where in a UK administration an action would give some benefit to creditors, and risk neither detriment to them nor impede the administration's progress, the court may be willing to intervene and support a challenge to the administrator's actions.
The facts
Key point
An English scheme for a company that has a "sufficiently close connection" with the jurisdiction can be proposed albeit recognition in Poland is at the discretion of the Polish courts.
The Facts
The U.S. Supreme Court in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2012 WL 1912197 (May 29, 2012), held that a debtor may not confirm a chapter 11 "cramdown" plan that provides for the sale of collateral free and clear of existing liens, but does not permit a secured creditor to credit-bid at the sale. The unanimous ruling written by Justice Scalia (with Justice Kennedy recused) resolved a split among the Third, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits.
On December 12, 2011, the Supreme Court granted a petition for certiorari in a case raising the question of whether a debtor's chapter 11 plan is confirmable when it proposes an auction sale of a secured creditor's assets free and clear of liens without permitting that creditor to "credit bid" its claims but instead provides the creditor with the "indubitable equivalent" of its secured claim. RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, No. 11-166 (cert. granted Dec. 12, 2011).
Earlier this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided in In re Lett that objections to a bankruptcy court’s approval of a cram-down chapter 11 plan on the basis of noncompliance with the “absolute priority rule” may be raised for the first time on appeal. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that “[a] bankruptcy court has an independent obligation to ensure that a proposed plan complies with [the] absolute priority rule before ‘cramming’ that plan down upon dissenting creditor classes,” whether or not stakeholders “formally” object on that basis.