A warm welcome to the Summer edition of Conyers Coverage. The whirlwind that is the Cayman Islands (re)insurance industry continues to blow with gusto! To keep you updated on recent developments, we include various items from our Insurance, Regulatory and Litigation teams, we ponder the possibilities and implications for the Cayman Islands in potentially securing Qualified Jurisdiction status with the NAIC and lots more beyond. We think there’s something for everyone in our latest edition so please dig in.

To NAIC or Not to NAIC?

Conyers were instructed by Silver Base Group Holdings Limited (“Silver Base”) in relation to a successful application for the appointment of “light-touch” provisional liquidators for restructuring purposes before the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

Introduction

In the recent judgment of In the Matter of Margara Shipping Limited (the “Margara Decision”)1 the Cayman Islands Grand Court provided some useful guidance on the basis on which a company can be restored to the Register of Companies (the “Register”) and subsequently wound up pursuant to section 159 of the Companies Act (2021 Revision) (the “Companies Act”) and the Grand Court Rules (2022 Consolidation) (“GCR”), Order 102, Rule 18.

The Legal Basis to Restore and Wind Up A Company

1. State of the Restructuring Market

1.1 Market Trends and Changes

State of the Restructuring and Insolvency Market

There were 27,359 insolvencies in France as of the end of September 2021, down 25.1% from the same period in 2020, and down 47.9% from September 2019. Such reduction is relatively stable across all sectors, including those most severely affected by the health-related restrictions, such as accommodation and food services (down 44.2% year-on-year) and trade (down 28.1% year on year).

Fewer Insolvencies for More Opportunities

At the end of 2021, corporate bankruptcies (for most company sizes and in most sectors) were at their lowest level compared to the pre-COVID-19 figures from 2019, with a 50% drop in insolvency proceedings and a 10% decrease in pre-insolvency situations. This was largely due to the temporary impact of government emergency measures and support, including:

In bankruptcy as in federal jurisprudence generally, to characterize something with the near-epithet of “federal common law” virtually dooms it to rejection.

In January 2020 we reported that, after the reconsideration suggested by two Supreme Court justices and revisions to account for the Supreme Court’s Merit Management decision,[1] the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stood by its origina

It seems to be a common misunderstanding, even among lawyers who are not bankruptcy lawyers, that litigation in federal bankruptcy court consists largely or even exclusively of disputes about the avoidance of transactions as preferential or fraudulent, the allowance of claims and the confirmation of plans of reorganization. However, with a jurisdictional reach that encompasses “all civil proceedings . . .

I don’t know if Congress foresaw, when it enacted new Subchapter V of Chapter 11 of the Code[1] in the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (“SBRA”), that debtors in pending cases would seek to convert or redesignate their cases as Subchapter V cases when SBRA became effective on February 19, 2020, but it was foreseeable.

Our February 26 post [1] reported on the first case dealing with the question whether a debtor in a pending Chapter 11 case may redesignate it as a case under Subchapter V, [2] the new subchapter of Chapter 11 adopted by the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (“SBRA”), which became effective on February 19.