- In light of the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, bankruptcy and restructuring considerations are a reality for many organizations.
- Debtors reorganizing under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code should be aware that environmental obligations may be exempt from the automatic stay and that some environmental obligations will not be dischargeable in bankruptcy.
- This Holland & Knight alert provides an overview of common issues arising at the intersection of bankruptcy and environmental law.
With economic downturn comes bankruptcy.
On May 6, 2020, in the case of In re Peabody Energy Corporation, 958 F.3d 717 (8th Cir.), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held, in an apparent case of first impression, that state statutory and common-law climate change tort claims are dischargeable in bankruptcy and were in fact discharged in this case, affirming the decisions of the lower courts.1
With two decisions (No. 1895/2018 and No. 1896/2018), both filed on 25 January 2018, the Court of Cassation reached opposite conclusions in the two different situations
The case
The Constitutional Court (6 December 2017) confirmed that Art. 147, para. 5, of the Italian Bankruptcy Law does not violate the Constitution as long as it is interpreted in a broad sense
The case
With the decision No. 1195 of 18 January 2018, the Court of Cassation ruled on the powers of the extraordinary commissioner to require performance of pending contracts and on the treatment of the relevant claims of the suppliers
The case
The Court of Cassation with a decision of 25 September 2017, No. 22274 confirms that Art. 74 of the Italian Bankruptcy Law provides a special rule, which does not apply to cases to which it is not explicitly extended
The case
With the decision No. 1649 of 19 September 2017 the Court of Appeals of Catania followed the interpretation according to which a spin-off is not subject to the avoiding powers of a bankruptcy receiver
The case
Applicable law
The Italian Government has been delegated to enact a comprehensive restatement of the whole set of rules of insolvency procedures, with specific innovative addresses regarding (to mention only the most important) the concordato preventivo procedure, venue rules, an out-of-court mediation alert process to timely address a risk of insolvency, new forms of security and a streamlined set of priorities among creditors
Introduction
The Court of Padua (15 June 2017) ruled that, in the procedure provided by Legislative Decree No. 270/1999, the three-year statute of limitations period provided by Art. 69-bis of the Italian Bankruptcy Law starts from the declaration of insolvency and not from the authorization of the plan for the sale of the business
The case