The Supreme Court’s long-awaited decision in the Sequana case (handed down on 5 October 2022)^[1] is the first time that the UK’s highest court has been asked to consider the proposition that directors are, in certain circumstances, under a duty in respect of creditors’ interests as distinct from shareholders’ interests.

The key takeaway points from this ‘momentous decision for company law’ (the words of Lady Arden who gave one of the leading judgments) are:

The Bankruptcy Protector

On August 18, 2022, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana, in In re BWGS, LLC, No. 19-01487-JMC-7A, 2022 WL 3568045 (Bankr. S.D. Ind. Aug. 18, 2022), narrowly interpreted the safe harbor provision in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code by refusing to dismiss a lawsuit against a guarantor whose liability was eliminated by the debtor’s payment to the bank that held the guarantee.

Overview on Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code

The Bankruptcy Protector

On June 6, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 142 S. Ct. 1770 (U.S. June 6, 2022) that the increase in fees payable to the U.S. Trustee system in 2018 violated the uniformity aspect of the Bankruptcy Clause of the Constitution because it was not immediately applicable in the two states with Bankruptcy Administrators rather than U.S. Trustees.

Summary

Restructuring Plans (“Plan(s)”) were introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) as a rescue tool for companies in financial difficulty to compromise debt and other liabilities owed to secured and unsecured creditors and its members, with the court’s sanction.

Summary

The Insolvency Service has released its report on CVAs (the “Report”), which was commissioned in response to the significant concerns raised by the commercial property sector in recent years and the legal challenges launched by landlords against a number of CVAs.

Overview

The Bankruptcy Protector

The Bankruptcy Protector

Back in July, Craig Eller wrote in The Bankruptcy Protector about the continuing confusion amongst courts and litigants regarding the applicability of a 2018 increase in fees payable to the Office of the United States Trustee in chapter 11 cases.

The Court (Mr Justice Miles) has refused to sanction a scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”) between ALL Scheme Limited (the “Company”) and its creditors. The Company is an entity within the Amigo group of companies (the “Group”).