Background

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) instigated entry restrictions for all visitors in mid-March and is currently operating a full lockdown system for all residents, apart from essential workers.

Financial services firms are working remotely and there has been no interruption to business continuity for the sector.

The adoption of new international guidelines on cross-border insolvency matters by the BVI courts has been welcomed by Ogier insolvency law specialist Nicholas Brookes.

The Judicial Insolvency Network guidelines – drafted in 2016 by ten insolvency judges from international jurisdictions, including a BVI Commercial Court Judge – aim to create co-operation and communication between courts on cross-jurisdiction proceedings, and to minimise the time and expense involved in litigation.

On January 17, 2017, in a long-awaited decision in Marblegate Asset Management, LLC v. Education Management Finance Corp.,1 the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that Section 316 of the Trust Indenture Act ("TIA") does not prohibit an out of court restructuring of corporate bonds so long as an indenture's core payment terms are left intact.

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that a lender’s security interest in accounts was not perfected because a reference to “proceeds” in the lender’s UCC financing statement did not expressly refer to “accounts.” The Sixth Circuit surprisingly interpreted the definition of “proceeds”1 in Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code to exclude “accounts”2 (despite and without reference to provisions of UCC Article 9 to the contrary).