Commercial insolvency can affect stakeholders located in multiple jurisdictions and possessing diverse legal rights. A recent notable trend in Canadian insolvency law is the centralization in insolvency proceedings, where courts have recognized that an effective restructuring of an insolvent business may depend on the centralization of stakeholder claims in a single proceeding. This applies even when such an approach would be inconsistent with the parties’ contractual rights, statutory laws or Canada’s federal structure outside of the insolvency context.

In the recent case of Peace River Hydro Partners v. Petrowest Corp., 2022 SCC 41 (Peace River), the Supreme Court of Canada (the SCC) clarified the circumstances in which an otherwise valid arbitration agreement may be held to be inoperative in the context of a court-ordered receivership under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. B-3 (the BIA).

BACKGROUND

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.

On August 26, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the Bankruptcy Code does not require subordination agreements to be strictly enforced in order for a court to confirm a cramdown plan, so long as the plan does not discriminate unfairly.

With COVID-19 causing ever increasing financial uncertainty around the globe, we thought it an apt time to provide you with a summary of the various corporate insolvency procedures in the UK applicable to companies facing financial difficulties. Taking each in turn, we will discuss administration, administrative receivership, company voluntary arrangements, schemes of arrangement and liquidation. We will also touch briefly on directors’ duties, rules relating to asset distribution on insolvency and transactions that may be set aside on insolvency or ‘reviewable’ transactions.

With COVID-19 causing ever increasing financial uncertainty around the globe, we thought it an apt time to provide you with a summary of the various corporate insolvency procedures in the UK applicable to companies facing financial difficulties. Taking each in turn, we will discuss administration, administrative receivership, company voluntary arrangements, schemes of arrangement and liquidation. We will also touch briefly on directors’ duties, rules relating to asset distribution on insolvency and transactions that may be set aside on insolvency or ‘reviewable’ transactions.

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

On January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision resolving the question of whether a motion for relief from the automatic stay constitutes a discrete dispute within the bankruptcy that creates a basis for a final appealable ruling, or whether it simply is a controversy that is part of the broader Chapter 11 case, such that appeals would not need to be taken until the conclusion of the Chapter 11 case.