This week’s TGIF considers a recent Federal Court of Australia decision (Connelly (liquidator) v Papadopoulos, in the matter of TSK QLD Pty Ltd (in liq) [2024] FCA 888). In the case, it was determined that a restructuring adviser who engineered an asset-stripping scheme may be found liable for the full value of the loss arising out of the scheme.

Key Takeaways

This week’s TGIF summarises the Federal Court of Australia’s recent decision granting leave to proceed against a company despite the appointment of a small business restructuring (SBR) practitioner under Pt 5.3B of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Corporations Act).

Key takeaways

Bed Bath & Beyond, the home goods retailer, has filed bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and plans to conduct liquidation sales and close all of its brick-and-mortar stores by June 30, as reported by The New York Times. The retailer points to an inability to adjust to the growth of online shopping as a reason for its downfall.

In a departure from prior precedent in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), a recent opinion by Judge Michael E. Wiles in In re Cortlandt Liquidating LLC,[1] effectively lowered the Bankruptcy Code section 502(b)(6) cap on rejection damages that a commercial real estate landlord may claim, by holding that the cap should be calculated using the “Time Approach,” rather than the “Rent Approach.”

Calculation of Lease Rejection Damages

The March 2023 banking crisis has been an unexpected “stress test” for dealing with liquidity issues.

When state regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank this past Friday, many startups understandably faced severe liquidity issues triggered by the sudden and unexpected loss of access to their deposits.

On February 13, 2023, Ultra Petroleum Corporation (“Ultra”) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the US Supreme Court seeking review of the Fifth Circuit’s October 2022 ruling that, in solvent-debtor cases, debtors must pay unsecured creditors applicable contractual make-whole premiums and postpetition interest at contractual default rates in order for such unsecured creditors to be considered unimpaired.

In a January 2023 opinion,1 the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court overseeing the bankruptcy case of Latin American airline Avianca and certain of its affiliates sanctioned over 150 of the airline’s Brazilian and Columbian creditors who had filed proofs of claim in the bankruptcy case finding t

In a decision likely to have significant impact on certain types of bankruptcy filings going forward, this morning, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case filed by Johnson & Johnson affiliate LTL Management LLC.

On January 4, 2023, Judge Glenn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a much-awaited decision in the Celsius Network LLC (along with its affiliated debtors, “Celsius” or the “Debtors”) chapter 11 cases relating to the ownership of crypto assets deposited by customers in the Celsius “Earn” rewards program accounts.

Over the span of two weeks in July 2022, two of the largest retail-facing cryptocurrency platforms, Celsius and Voyager, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.