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On 5 October 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA and others. This is the first time that the Supreme Court has addressed the questions of whether there is a duty owed to creditor where a company may be at risk of insolvency, and the point at which that duty is triggered.

INTRODUCTION

India has been grappling with an increase in non-performing assets (NPA) and defaults of loans since at least the 1990s. As per recent reports, gross NPAs of public sector banks have doubled in the last 7 (seven) years, 1 which is indicative of the issues being faced by lenders against recalcitrant borrowers.

Criminal prosecutions for administrators are rare, and rarer still are prosecutions under employment legislation. However, a recent decision has confirmed that an administrator can be prosecuted and personally liable for a failure to notify the Secretary of State of proposed collective redundancies under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently ruled in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtors’ attempt to shield contributions to a 401(k) retirement account from “projected disposable income,” therefore making such amounts inaccessible to the debtors’ creditors.[1] For the reasons explained below, the Sixth Circuit rejected the debtors’ arguments.

Case Background

A statute must be interpreted and enforced as written, regardless, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “of whether a court likes the results of that application in a particular case.” That legal maxim guided the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in a recent decision[1] in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtor’s repeated filings and requests for dismissal of his bankruptcy cases in order to avoid foreclosure of his home.

When used correctly, pre-pack administrations can be an effective means of creating an opportunity for the rescue of an insolvent business. However, concerns are regularly expressed about the lack of transparency in the sale process and the potential for poor outcomes for unsecured creditors, particularly where a disposal involves connected parties. These concerns have been exacerbated by some unfavourable media reports about a limited number of high-profile cases, and the speed at which transactions are often required to take place in order to preserve value and jobs.