Jamais dans l’histoire les entreprises de toutes tailles et de pratiquement toutes les industries n’ont affronté une crise résultant à la fois d’un tarissement des sources d’approvisionnement et de la demande de façon simultanée. La crise de liquidités qui en découle engendre une insécurité omniprésente au sein des gestionnaires des entreprises et de l’ensemble des parties intéressées de celles-ci, incluant leurs employés, actionnaires, clients, fournisseurs, créanciers et les communautés dans lesquelles les entreprises opèrent.

Never before in history have businesses of all sizes and of all or almost all industries faced a crisis resulting from a simultaneous decline of supply and demand. The resulting liquidity crisis is creating pervasive insecurity among the managers of businesses and the stakeholders of those businesses, including their employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, creditors and the communities in which the businesses operate.

As governments impose restrictions on travel and more and more people are self-isolating and taking steps towards social distancing, the entire travel industry, the live entertainment industry and businesses with bricks and mortar presences, like restaurants and retail stores, expect to experience an immediate drop in revenue.

The oil and gas industry in the United States is highly dependent upon an intricate set of agreements that allow oil and gas to be gathered from privately owned land. Historically, the dedication language in oil and gas gathering agreements — through which the rights to the oil or gas in specified land are dedicated — was viewed as being a covenant that ran with the land. That view was put to the test during the wave of oil and gas exploration company bankruptcies that began in 2014.

The Ontario Court of Appeal determines when it is appropriate to vest out a royalty interest as part of an insolvency proceeding

The Importance of the Decision

On February 25, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision holding that a trustee is not barred by either the presumption against extraterritoriality or by international comity principles from recovering property from a foreign subsequent transferee that received the property from a foreign initial transferee.

On January 17, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision holding that “impairment” under a plan of reorganization does not arise even if a creditor is paid less than it would be entitled to under its contract, so long as the reduced recovery is due to the plan’s incorporation of the Bankruptcy Code’s disallowance provisions.

Intercreditor agreements between secured creditors are intended to limit the potential for litigation and result in predictable commercial outcomes with respect to recoveries from collateral in enforcement actions and bankruptcies. Despite the extensive drafting efforts of sophisticated counsel to eliminate ambiguities in these agreements, the interpretation of intercreditor agreements has been the subject of substantial bankruptcy litigation.

On November 8, 2018, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Bankruptcy Court”) issued a decision dismissing an involuntary chapter 11 case filed against Taberna Preferred Funding IV, Ltd. (“Taberna”), a CDO, by holders of non-recourse notes (the “Petitioning Creditors”).