On March 19, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its decision in In re Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 2021 WL 1046485 (3rd Cir. Mar. 19, 2021), affirming lower courts’ decisions rejecting “triangular setoff” agreements as a proper basis for the application of setoff rights under section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code.

n December 21, 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the Act), which was just signed by President Donald Trump. The Act makes certain amendments to the United States Bankruptcy Code (the Bankruptcy Code) relating to small business bankruptcies commenced under Subchapter V of Chapter 11, as well as to individual bankruptcies under Chapters 7, 11, 12, and 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. This article highlights those changes to the Bankruptcy Code that small businesses should consider utilizing in weighing the benefits and potential costs of filing for bankruptcy.

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