The English Court of Appeal has recently decided that a corporation that held shares in a company remained a shareholder notwithstanding the shareholding company's dissolution.

BWE Estates Limited had two shareholders: an individual named David who held 75% of its shares and a company, Belvedere Limited, which held the remaining 25%. Although Belvedere was dissolved in 1996, it remained listed as a shareholder in BWE's share register.

In the English High Court, the joint administrators of four English companies within the former Lehman Brothers group sought directions from the Court in respect of a proposed settlement. The settlement would put to rest substantial inter-company claims including those at issue in the 'Waterfall III' proceedings.

In a second application heard on the same day, Hildyard J considered an application by the administrators of Lehman Brothers Europe Limited (LBEL) for directions that would enable a surplus to be distributed to the sole member of LBEL while LBEL remained in administration. The proposed scheme had material benefits for both shareholders and creditors. The administrators acknowledged that the orders sought were an indirect means of circumventing the Insolvency Act 1986 (UK), which does not expressly provide for directors to make distributions during an administration.

The Court of Appeal has recently dismissed an appeal from the High Court's judgment (discussed in our September 2016 update) setting aside a compromise under Part 14 of the Companies Act 1993 after finding that the challenging creditors, who had voted against the compromise, had been unfairly prejudiced by the decision to call only one meeting of creditors.

In Day v The Official Assignee as Liquidator of GN Networks Ltd (in Liq) [2016] NZHC 2400, the High Court rejected a claim that the funding arrangement at issue constituted maintenance or champerty.

Numerous municipalities in California and elsewhere are struggling financially. Indeed, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Central Falls, Rhode Island have both recently filed for Chapter 9 protection. State governments may have neither the economic reserves nor the political will to bail out troubled cities and counties. These circumstances have raised the focus on Chapter 9 as a tool for reorganizing municipality debt obligations and has deepened the debate between states and their municipalities about the best strategies for addressing a fiscal crisis.

Tribal economies are not immune to the recent global financial crisis and economic downturn. The Indian gaming industry was hit especially hard. After consistent year-over-year growth in tribal gaming revenues during the 1990s and continuing through 2008, industry revenues declined in 2009 and have continued to stagnate. Amid reports of several tribal casino defaults—and many more tribes with significant debt maturing in the near future that will need to be restructured—tribes and creditors must consider two questions: Are tribes and their corporations eligible for bankruptcy?

In a recent 113-page decision, Judge Alan S. Gold of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida quashed the TOUSA Bankruptcy Court’s previous controversial fraudulent conveyance decision that required secured lenders (the "Transeastern Lenders") to disgorge approximately $480 million received in settlement of their claims against TOUSA.