The High Court has reaffirmed the test to be applied in considering an application to dismiss a bankruptcy summons grounded on a judgment.
The bankruptcy process in Ireland involves multiple steps and the debtor can seek to bring it to a halt at each step. Debtors often seek to rerun effectively the same arguments at each step, ignoring previous findings by the courts. One such step is an application to dismiss a bankruptcy summons.
The Irish High Court has determined that the liquidation of an Irish aircraft leasing company, which was a 100% subsidiary of a Russian company expressly subject to EU sanctions, rebuts the presumption that the company was controlled by the Russian parent for the purpose of EU sanctions.
This enables the liquidators to deal with the assets without costly and time-consuming derogation applications.
Background
Irish company law provides that if a charge granted by a company is not registered in the Companies Registration Office (CRO) within 21 days of its creation, it is void against a liquidator and any creditor of the company. There is a duty imposed on a company which grants a charge to register the charge in the CRO but the creditor taking the charge can also do so.
Diamond Rock Developments Ltd (the Company) granted a mortgage over a property. That mortgage was registered in the Land Registry but was not registered in the CRO.
If you supply goods, the simplest step that you can take to reduce your exposure to a customer’s insolvency is to use effective retention of title (RoT).
However not all RoT clauses are effective and we see many RoT claims rejected in insolvency.
By default, once you sell goods on credit:
- the goods belong to the customer; and
- the customer owes you the purchase price.
This means that if an insolvency practitioner (IP) is appointed to the customer:
Earlier this month, the SDNY Bankruptcy Court answered one of the gating questions at the center of Celsius Network’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy regarding the ownership of the approximately $4.2 billion in crypto assets.
Corporate insolvency numbers continued to appear artificially low in 2022. The expectation is that they will rise once businesses need to deal with the aftermath of Government pandemic supports and, in particular, start to pay warehoused taxes.
BlockFi Inc. and eight of its affiliates followed the paths of crypto platforms Voyager, Celsius and FTX by filing for bankruptcy protection. The case, commenced in the District of New Jersey, on November 28, 2022, is off to a fast start. BlockFi filed a plan of reorganization on the first day of its case. The plan proposes a standalone restructuring but allows the company to toggle to a sale of all or substantially all of the company’s assets. The company had its first day hearing in New Jersey on November 29th and expressed an interest in exiting bankruptcy expeditiously.
Shoba Pillay, the Examiner appointed in Celsius’ bankruptcy cases, filed her interim report on November 19, 2022. The Celsius Examiner’s report provides some important insight into a crypto-exchange’s operational and risk management failures which may provide investors and creditors some insight into what to expect in FTX.
FTX has warned its investors, customers and the crypto-world that they may have to file for bankruptcy protection without rescue financing to address its immediate liquidity crisis. Unlike the bankruptcy cases of Celsius and Voyager, FTX’s case, should it file, will likely involve many institutional investors with secured and unsecured claims.
In the short time since we last provided an update regarding the bankruptcy cases of Celsius Networks LLC and its affiliates (here), there have been a number of material developments to report.