What Happened?

The Bottom Line

One feature commonly seen in commercial lending transactions is a waiver of the borrower’s authority to file for bankruptcy without the consent of the lender. While such “blocking” provisions are generally upheld where the equity interest holders are the parties with such rights, they are generally unenforceable as a matter of public policy when such protection is given to a creditor with no meaningful ownership interest in the corporate debtor.

Overview

When enacting the Bankruptcy Code, Congress sought to strike a balance amid the confluence of different — and often competing — interests held by debtors, secured creditors and various unsecured creditor constituencies (including landlords) through a framework of statutory protections. This has – at times – led to litigation over differing statutory interpretations as well as circuit splits as courts attempt to reconcile underlying policy goals with the less-than-clear language in various of the Code’s provisions.

Real estate lenders and borrowers everywhere are trying to figure out what to do with properties that are either sitting vacant or underperforming pre-pandemic expectations. In New York, a number of mezzanine foreclosures have been pursued with varying degrees of success when challenged in court. Some lenders have been shopping their loans, mostly at discounts to par that are not large enough to create substantial deal flow in the marketplace.

Historically, the interests of landlords whose commercial real estate is occupied by debtors in Chapter 11 proceedings have been generally well protected. Indeed, Section 365(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code requires the debtor to timely perform all of its post-petition obligations under its nonresidential leases of real property — most important among those, rent.

Introduction

The concept of winding up does not exclusively apply to insolvent companies. Solvent companies can also be wound up, on the initiation of the company’s directors and shareholders (for example, as part of a corporate reconstruction or to close down non-operating or redundant entities). 

An overview of the two key procedures to effect the dissolution of a solvent Australian company, being Members’ Voluntary Liquidation and Deregistration, is set out below. 

In brief

Even with the fiscal stimulus and other measures taken by the Federal and State governments in Australia, corporate insolvencies are likely to increase in coming months.

Under Australia's insolvency regimes, a distressed company may be subject to voluntary administration, creditor's voluntary winding up or court ordered winding up (collectively, an external administration). Each of these processes raises different issues for the commencement and continuation of court and arbitration proceedings.

In summary

In our previous alert we discussed how Justice Markovic in the Federal Court of Australia had granted the administrators of retailer Colette Group relief from personal liability for rent in respect of 93 stores.  

The Australian Federal Court has made orders relieving the administrators of retailer Colette from personal liability for rent in response to the COVID-19 crisis and the current uncertainty in respect of government policy about rent relief for tenants: see

What you need to know

On March 27, the president signed into law Phase 3 of the federal stimulus program, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. Title I of the act, titled the Keeping American Workers Paid and Employed Act (KAWPEA), directs, among other amounts, $349 billion to small businesses as part of an expansion of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Section 7(a) loan program under a new paycheck protection loan program (PPP) as well as $10 billion through an expansion to the SBA’s Section 7(b) economic injury disaster loan (EIDL) program.