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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.

The last 12 months have seen a steady increase in restructuring and stressed or distressed financing transactions in the European market across a range of sectors, including tech, real estate, hospitality, manufacturing and retail.

Adler Group S.A. (together with its subsidiaries, the “Group”) owns and manages a portfolio of multi-family residential rental properties in Germany. The Group has faced financial headwinds caused by a downturn in the German property market and a negative global macroeconomic landscape exacerbated by, amongst other things, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

As we continue to work with clients regarding the Bank of England’s statement as to its intention to apply to place Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SVB UK) into a bank insolvency procedure, please see below for responses to some frequently asked questions surrounding the current situation. Please note that this list covers general topics related to rapidly changing circumstances.

As 2023 gets underway, we've taken the opportunity here to look at what we saw in the European distressed market in 2022, as well as looking ahead to what we expect to see in the months to come.

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.

The UK Government has announced today that temporary measures to protect businesses in distress introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic through the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 will be lifted from 1 October 2021.

New measures intended to protect small businesses as the economy reopens, particularly in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, are to be introduced, with effect until 31 March 2022.

In June 2020, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act (the “CIGA”) introduced a new procedure to the restructuring toolkit in England & Wales, the Part 26A restructuring plan (the “Plan”, see further detail on CIGA in our article here). The Plan is similar to the well-tested English law scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”), and the English courts have so far relied on the wealth of Scheme case law to guide them in deciding whether to sanction a Plan.

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).