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On October 17, 2022, Justice Andrea Masley of the NY Supreme Court issued a decision and order denying all but one of the motion to dismiss claims filed by Boardriders, Oaktree Capital (an equity holder, term lender, and “Sponsor” under the credit agreement), and an ad hoc group of lenders (the “Participating Lenders”) that participated in an “uptiering” transaction that included new money investments and roll-ups of existing term loan debt into new priming debt that would sit at the top of the company’s capital structure.

On October 14, 2022, the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in Ultra Petroleum, granting favorable outcomes to “unimpaired” creditors that challenged the company’s plan of reorganization and argued for payment (i) of a ~$200 million make-whole and (ii) post-petition interest at the contractual rate, not the Federal Judgment Rate. At issue on appeal was the Chapter 11 plan proposed by the “massively solvent” debtors—Ultra Petroleum Corp. (HoldCo) and its affiliates, including subsidiary Ultra Resources, Inc.

On July 6, Delaware Bankruptcy Court Judge Craig T. Goldblatt issued a memorandum opinion in the bankruptcy cases of TPC Group, Inc., growing the corpus of recent court decisions tackling “uptiering” and other similar transactions that have been dubbed by some practitioners and investors as “creditor-on-creditor violence.” This topic has been a hot button issue for a few years, playing out in a number of high profile scenarios, from J.Crew and Travelport to Serta Simmons and TriMark, among others.

Introduction:

In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court of India, while keeping up the efforts of plugging various loopholes in Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“Code”), decided an interesting legal issue relating to the scope of Section 5(20) of the Code, which provides the definition of “operational creditor”.

The Apex Court, in the case of Consolidated Construction Consortium Limited vs. Hitro Energy Solutions Private Limited, was seized of the following legal questions:

INTRODUCTION:

The Supreme Court in a recent judgment of Indus Biotech Pvt. Ltd. vs. Kotak India Venture (Offshore) Fund [AIR 2021 SC 1638] has settled an important question of law: ‘whetheran application filed under Section 8 of Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (‘A&C Act’) can be said to be maintainable in a proceeding initiated under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (‘IBC’)’.

INTRODUCTION:

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (‘Code’) was enacted by the Parliament with the aim to provide and revamp the framework for insolvency resolution in India in a time bound manner and for the promotion of entrepreneurship, credit availability and balancing of different interests of each and every stakeholder of a Company.

On December 19, 2019, the Second Circuit held that appellants’ state law constructive fraudulent transfer claims were preempted by virtue of the Bankruptcy Code’s safe harbors that exempt transfers made in connection with a contract for the purchase, sale or loan of a security from being clawed back into the bankruptcy estate for