The English Court of Appeal has recently decided that a corporation that held shares in a company remained a shareholder notwithstanding the shareholding company's dissolution.

BWE Estates Limited had two shareholders: an individual named David who held 75% of its shares and a company, Belvedere Limited, which held the remaining 25%. Although Belvedere was dissolved in 1996, it remained listed as a shareholder in BWE's share register.

In the English High Court, the joint administrators of four English companies within the former Lehman Brothers group sought directions from the Court in respect of a proposed settlement. The settlement would put to rest substantial inter-company claims including those at issue in the 'Waterfall III' proceedings.

In a second application heard on the same day, Hildyard J considered an application by the administrators of Lehman Brothers Europe Limited (LBEL) for directions that would enable a surplus to be distributed to the sole member of LBEL while LBEL remained in administration. The proposed scheme had material benefits for both shareholders and creditors. The administrators acknowledged that the orders sought were an indirect means of circumventing the Insolvency Act 1986 (UK), which does not expressly provide for directors to make distributions during an administration.

The Court of Appeal has recently dismissed an appeal from the High Court's judgment (discussed in our September 2016 update) setting aside a compromise under Part 14 of the Companies Act 1993 after finding that the challenging creditors, who had voted against the compromise, had been unfairly prejudiced by the decision to call only one meeting of creditors.

In Day v The Official Assignee as Liquidator of GN Networks Ltd (in Liq) [2016] NZHC 2400, the High Court rejected a claim that the funding arrangement at issue constituted maintenance or champerty.

More than a decade after the enactment of chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, issues pertaining to recognition of a foreign debtor’s bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding under chapter 15 have, in large part, shifted from the purely procedural inquiry (such as the foreign debtor’s center of main interests, or “COMI”) to more substantive challenges regarding the limits, if any, that chapter 15 places on U.S. bankruptcy courts. But as demonstrated by the recent ruling in In re Creative Finance Ltd. (In Liquidation), 2016 BL 8825 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2016), U.S.

The chapter 15 cases of OAS S.A. ("OAS") and its affiliates represent the second time in less than one year that a U.S. bankruptcy court has been confronted with a serious challenge to the recognition of insolvency proceedings in Brazil by a group of U.S. creditors. The latest challenge focused on two separate lines of attack: (1) whether the "foreign representative" authorized to commence a chapter 15 case can be appointed by the company rather than the foreign insolvency court; and (2) whether Brazilian insolvency law is manifestly contrary to U.S. public policy.

Non-U.S. companies in the process of restructuring debt that includes one or more series of U.S. bonds must ensure that their restructuring plan and any securities issued as part of such plan comply with the requirements of U.S. securities law, in particular the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"). 

In December 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held as a matter of first impression in Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP v. Barnet (In re Barnet), 737 F.3d 238 (2d Cir. 2013), that section 109(a) of the Bankruptcy Code, which requires a debtor "under this title" to have a domicile, a place of business, or property in the U.S., applies in cases under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.

October 17, 2013, will mark the eighth anniversary of the enactment of chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code as part of the comprehensive U.S. bankruptcy-law reforms implemented in 2005. Chapter 15, which governs cross-border bankruptcy and insolvency cases, is patterned after the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (the “Model Law”), a framework of legal principles formulated by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) in 1997 to deal with the rapidly expanding volume of international insolvency cases.