On 27 February 2024, the High Court sanctioned a restructuring plan (the Plan) proposed by CB&I UK Limited (CB&I), part of the global McDermott construction and engineering group (the Group). This is the first English restructuring plan to be approved after the Court of Appeal judgment in Adler (see our Alert) and follows the guidance in that case.
Background
On 23 January 2024, the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court's sanction of Adler Group's (Adler) restructuring plan (the Plan) (see our alert). This much anticipated judgment provides clarity on the court's discretion to sanction a plan where there are dissenting classes of creditors.
Background
The Plan envisaged:
The Court of Appeal has recently referred to established case law that the court will only interfere with the act of an officeholder “if he has done something so utterly unreasonable and absurd that no reasonable man would have done it”.
While the judge in the lower court had not made any error of law, on the facts there were identifiable flaws in the judge's reasoning that the trustees' decision not to join in the proceedings was perverse.
The judge had failed to recognise that:
After a weekend that saw the tech ecosystem unite to fight for its future, on Monday 13 March 2023, the Bank of England (the Bank) effected the sale of Silicon Valley Bank UK Ltd (SVB UK) to HSBC. It used the resolution powers for stabilising failing banks granted by the Banking Act 2009 which were introduced following the 2008/9 financial crisis.
Resolution powers
The UK insolvency statistics released on 2 August for Q2 2022 (1 April – 30 June 2022) make for fairly sombre, if not entirely unsurprising, reading.
An 81% increase in corporate insolvencies in England and Wales from the same period in 2021 and a 13% increase in insolvencies from Q1 2022. The worst affected sectors are reported to include food, retail and construction.
Los juzgados de primera instancia conocerán, entre otras, de las acciones colectivas previstas en la legislación sobre condiciones generales de la contratación y en la legislación sobre defensa de consumidores y usuarios.
引言
近年来，伴随着经济形势与产业政策的变化，融资租赁成为了争议高发领域，并且日益呈现出争议案件数量多、标的金额大等特点。以上海地区为例，根据上海高级人民法院发布的《2020年度上海法院金融商事审判情况通报》，在2020年上海法院受理的一审金融商事案件中，融资租赁合同纠纷的案件数量位居第三，同比上升65.93%，争议标的金额则位居第二，仅次于金融借款合同纠纷。而在诸多争议之中，对于租赁物所有权的保护始终是多年以来困扰我国融资租赁从业者、司法裁判者甚至是立法者的一大难题。[1]
本篇中，我们将结合过往在融资租赁业务领域的执业经验，从程序及实体两个角度，分别梳理《中华人民共和国民法典》（以下简称“《民法典》”）生效前的存量项目中，出租人在租赁物被承租人擅自处分后可能面临的“困局”及“破局”进路。而在下篇中，我们将基于后《民法典》时代法律条文与配套制度的更迭，进一步对融资租赁行业实践的变化作出解读与研判。
一、 “困局”：租赁物被承租人擅自处分，出租人的物权保障岌岌可危
The UK High Court has excluded 'out of the money' creditors and shareholders from voting on Smile Telecoms Holdings Limited’s (Smile) restructuring plan because they did not have a genuine economic interest in the company.
Background
On 12 May 2021, in the first opposed cross-class cram down case, the English High Court sanctioned Virgin Active's restructuring plans, the first to bind landlords to lease compromises.
The decision
While the opposing landlords challenged the valuation evidence advanced by the companies, they did not advance evidence of their own. The court accepted the companies' evidence that: