In Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision held that the US Bankruptcy Code does not permit a debtor to confirm a chapter 11 plan that releases non-debtors from similar or related claims the creditors could assert directly against them.

On August 17, 2023, China Evergrande Group, one of China’s largest real estate developers, and its affiliates filed chapter 15 petitions in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan seeking recognition of foreign restructuring proceedings in the High Court of Hong Kong and in the High Court of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in the British Virgin Islands.

Crypto firm bankruptcies and resulting disruption in the crypto ecosystem will continue to exacerbate liquidity and regulatory concerns in this space. Signs of contagion are evident as prices of almost every cryptocurrency type have halved in recent months. Since all participants supporting the crypto ecosystem are at risk, managing that risk is critical.

Fund managers should be prepared on multiple fronts, as the following examples illustrate:

Everything, everywhere, all at once is our risk thesis for 2023, but one must not forget about concentration risk. This issue has rocketed up diligence agendas for LPs and GPs alike as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank proved it really was the bank for venture capital.The entry of SVB into receivership on March 10, 2023 highlighted just how central it had become to U.S.

How did we get here?

The crypto markets were rocked again last week by the collapse and bankruptcy of FTX and Alameda Research. Within a few short days, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his companies went from a stabilizing force for markets and acting as an industry leader to causing one of the greatest disruptions in digital asset market history.

Volatile commodity prices in 2020 led to the bankruptcy of many oil and gas producers. While some analysts expect oil and gas prices to rise during 2021, the US Energy Information Administration’s 2021 annual outlook advises that a return to 2019 levels of US energy consumption will take years.[2]

Commercial bankruptcy practice in the United States is governed by Chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code. The focus of Chapter 11 is assisting a distressed company to reorganize its debts to emerge as a going concern or liquidate its assets as part of an orderly wind-down. In this article, we highlight the key benefits available to a Chapter 11 debtor and describe the various stages of a case, including statutory requirements, and types of plans.

In our work with international companies supplying goods to the UK, we see a number of common issues arising regularly. In our previous articles, we explained what happens if a UK customer hits financial difficulties and the powers of insolvency practitioners. In this last of five articles based on the five elements of the Wu Xing, we take the theme of Earth and explain the options to get paid by an insolvent customer, completing the business as usual cycle of supply and payment and thereby restoring balance to your business.

在与向英国供货的国际公司合作的过程中，我们发现了一些常见问题。在上一篇文章中，我们研究了客户可能面临的破产程序类型。在“五行”系列第四篇文章中，我们围绕“火”元素来说明破产执业者在进入破产程序时拥有的重大权力：调查不当行为，并将资产收回统一偿还债权人。

火：破产执业者对债权人欺诈性交易的重大权力

破产执业者(不论是清算人或管理人)可以向法院申请撤销在公司进入破产程序前进行的特定交易。通过这种方式，可以收回资产或资金，统一向债权人偿付。下列情形属于“先前的”或“可审查”的交易：

1. 公司的资产或财产被低价出售；
2. 公司在进入破产程序前给予某债权人优先权，使其处于比其他债权人更有利的地位；
3. 公司订立了敲诈性信贷交易（交易条款有严重的敲诈性）；
4. 公司设立了无效浮动抵押，即为已发放的贷款或已提供的货物及服务的成本提供担保；
5. 公司订立的交易具有欺诈债权人的明确目的，即：使公司的资产脱离破产执业者和债权人的控制范围。

不同类型的可审查交易有不同的时间要求。例如，低价出售必须发生在公司进入破产程序前的两年内。

In our work with international companies supplying goods to the UK, we see the same issues arising regularly. In Part 3, we examined the types of insolvency process a customer may be subject to. In this fourth of five articles based on the five elements of the Wu Xing, we take the theme of Fire and explain the significant powers that arise for the insolvency practitioner on the entry into insolvency: to investigate propriety and recover assets to the central pool to pay creditors.

Fire: the great powers of the insolvency practitioner regarding transactions defrauding creditors