The Russian government has introduced a bankruptcy moratorium with effect from 1 April to 1 October 2022 in respect of all Russian legal entities and individuals (“Persons“) except for certain residential real estate developers.

The moratorium is intended to protect Russian debtors against creditors’ claims and provide support for players on the Russian market given the challenging environment they operate in.

The key consequences of the introduction of the moratorium regime are as follows:

1. Introduction

As in other jurisdictions, Russia’s insolvency legislation is based on the pari passu principle. However, this principle is subject to certain exceptions, specifically with respect to shareholders and other non-arm’s length creditors, such as the controlling persons of an insolvent company (“Affiliated Creditors”).

In practice, Affiliated Creditors use other instruments (e.g. loans, intergroup supplies etc.) to have their claims listed in the creditors’ register of an insolvent company.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will leave in its wake a significant increase in commercial chapter 11 filings. Many of these cases will feature extensive litigation involving breach of contract claims, business interruption insurance disputes, and common law causes of action based on novel interpretations of long-standing legal doctrines such as force majeure.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali recently ruled in the Chapter 11 case of Pacific Gas & Electric (“PG&E”) that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) has no jurisdiction to interfere with the ability of a bankrupt power utility company to reject power purchase agreements (“PPAs”).

The Supreme Court this week resolved a long-standing open issue regarding the treatment of trademark license rights in bankruptcy proceedings. The Court ruled in favor of Mission Products, a licensee under a trademark license agreement that had been rejected in the chapter 11 case of Tempnology, the debtor-licensor, determining that the rejection constituted a breach of the agreement but did not rescind it.

Russia's Supreme Court guidelines reduce high net worth individuals' ("HNWIs") asset protection opportunities and potentially create risks of additional creditor claims against HNWIs after divorce and asset division between the HNWI and his/her spouse.1

In addition, these guidelines enable third parties, notably creditors of the ex-spouse, to get access to information regarding the HNWI's disputed assets. We summarize the most important points of these guidelines below.

Key developments

Few issues in bankruptcy create as much contention as disputes regarding the right of setoff. This was recently highlighted by a decision in the chapter 11 case of Orexigen Therapeutics in the District of Delaware.

The judicial power of the United States is vested in courts created under Article III of the Constitution. However, Congress created the current bankruptcy court system over 40 years ago pursuant to Article I of the Constitution rather than under Article III.

Southeastern Grocers (operator of the Winn-Dixie, Bi Lo and Harvey’s supermarket chains) recently completed a successful restructuring of its balance sheet through a “prepackaged” chapter 11 case in the District of Delaware. As part of the deal with the holders of its unsecured bonds, the company agreed that under the plan of reorganization it would pay in cash the fees and expenses of the trustee for the indenture under which the unsecured bonds were issued.

General context

The statutory regulation of cryptocurrency in Russia is yet to be made compatible with the current dynamics of digital assets.