On 31 October 2023, Federal Law No. 51 of 2023 Promulgating the Financial and Bankruptcy Law (the Bankruptcy Law) was published in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Official Gazette, repealing the prior federal law on bankruptcy (Federal Law No. 9 of 2016, the Prior Law) and significantly developing the bankruptcy regime in the UAE.

Executive Summary

We are excited to share the inaugural edition of R+I In Brief, where we explore the past year of developments in the Australian restructuring and insolvency industry and provide our thoughts on the year ahead.

The 2023 edition of R+I In Brief includes a collection of articles and case notes we have prepared as well as some further commentary on issues we consider pertinent to the restructuring and insolvency industry.

It is broken up into three parts:

In this Part of the 2023 edition of R+I In Brief, we delve into significant judicial developments relating to insolvency law, including:

Part 1 of the 2023 edition of R+I In Brief explores restructuring and insolvency developments in Australia in FY22/23.

Overview

Despite the challenges flowing from increasing global inflation and supply chain disruptions, the Australian economy has to date remained resilient and a technical recession has been avoided in 2023. However, after many years of historically low interest rates, the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates rapidly from April 2022 (12 rate rises and counting) as inflation became uncontrollable.

This Part of the 2023 edition of R+I In Brief provides key industry and sector insights relating to the restructuring space over the past year. These hot topics include:

Contents:

The Bankruptcy Code confers upon debtors or trustees, as the case may be, the power to avoid certain preferential or fraudulent transfers made to creditors within prescribed guidelines and limitations. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Mexico recently addressed the contours of these powers through a recent decision inU.S. Glove v. Jacobs, Adv. No. 21-1009, (Bankr. D.N.M.

In In re Smith, (B.A.P. 10th Cir., Aug. 18, 2020), the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently joined the majority of circuit courts of appeals in finding that a creditor seeking a judgment of nondischargeability must demonstrate that the injury caused by the prepetition debtor was both willful and malicious under Section 523(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Factual Background

In a recent decision, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York held that claim disallowance issues under Section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code "travel with" the claim, and not with the claimant. Declining to follow a published district court decision from the same federal district, the bankruptcy court found that section 502(d) applies to disallow a transferred claim regardless of whether the transferee acquired its claim through an assignment or an outright sale. See In re Firestar Diamond, 615 B.R. 161 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2020).