On December 5, 2022, in In re Global Cord Blood Corp., 2022 WL 17478530 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2022) (“Global Cord”), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) denied recognition of a proceeding pending in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (the “Cayman Proceeding” and the court, the “Cayman Court”) because it was more like a corporate governance and fraud remediation effort than a collective proceeding for the purpose of dealing with reorganization or liquidation, as Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code requires.

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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.

Much discussion has been had recently about the fact that cryptocurrencies (tokens and coins) do not fit neatly into a generally accepted financial asset classification. The value of most cryptocurrencies is not pegged to any tangible commodity or fiat currency.

In bankruptcy parlance, the lookback period does not look good for the crypto industry. In the last 90 days, the cryptocurrency markets have suffered huge losses, and in the last 14 days, two major players have sought bankruptcy protection. During the prior 365 days, nearly three trillion dollars of value has been stripped from the digital wallets of cryptocurrency investors, and the industry has been forced to eliminate thousands of jobs.

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.

News outlets and industry publications have been publishing information about recent “crypto winter” bankruptcies. In order to understand the impact of these bankruptcies as well as how they may impact your investments, it is important to understand what is currently known about these recent filings.

Three Arrows Capital Liquidation and Bankruptcy

On August 5, 2021, the Eighth Circuit reversed a district court’s decision to dismiss a confirmation order appeal as equitably moot.[1] The doctrine of equitable mootness can require dismissal of an appeal of a bankruptcy court decision – typically, an order confirming a chapter 11 plan – on equitable grounds when third parties have engaged in significant irreversible transactions

On October 5, 2021, the Tenth Circuit joined the Second Circuit in concluding statutory fee increases that applied only to debtors filing for bankruptcy in judicial districts administered by the United States Trustee Program (the “US Trustee” or the “UST Program”) violated the U.S.