As discussed in previousposts, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the “Act”) was signed into law on December 27, 2020, largely to address the harsh economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Part 2: Amendments Affecting Mortgage Lenders and Landlords

As discussed in a previous post, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the “Act”), which was enacted on December 27, 2020 in response to the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, amended numerous provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. This post discusses amendments specifically affecting landlords.

On December 27, 2020, in response to the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to supplement the CARES Act enacted in March 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the “Act”) was enacted. In addition to providing $900 billion in pandemic relief, the Act benefits both debtors and creditors by temporarily modifying the following sections of the Bankruptcy Code, which may be of particular interest to creditors:

Amendments to Article 9.1 of the Insolvency Law¹ ("Law 149-FZ") came into effect on 24 April 2020. The amendments provide that the benefit of the insolvency filing moratorium can be waived (the "moratorium waiver"). In addition, on 21 April 2020, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ("Russian SC") adopted clarifications (the "Clarifications"),² which, in particular, explain that the moratorium will apply if the debtor meets the formal criterion of being included in the list of persons covered by the moratorium ("protected debtors").

The Russian Government has introduced a moratorium on the filing of insolvency claims (the "moratorium")¹ from 6 April through 6 October 2020. This will have important legal consequences both for the persons covered by it ("protected debtors") and for those with whom they do business. The moratorium imposes restrictions on transactions made by protected debtors.

This review concerns a number of amendments to Federal Law "On insolvency"1 (the "Law") introduced by federal laws No. 222-FZ2 and No. 488-FZ3, and the interpretation of the amendments in the Review of Court Practice on Matters Related to Participation of State Authorities in Insolvency Proceedings and Procedures Applicable in these Proceedings, approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on 20 December 2016 (the "Review").

This review covers the following most important amendments:

In Russian insolvency procedures, it is quite common for third parties to try to exclude property from a debtor’s insolvent estate (konkursnaya massa) by claiming title to its real property in the absence of the registered title. These third parties may refer to the agreements that had been made prior to the commencement of the insolvency procedure as well as to the actual transfer of property to them.

Introduction

On 25 July 2016, the White & Case team obtained, at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (the "Supreme Court"), a declaration that a secured creditor has the right to reduce, at its discretion, the amount of a secured claim during receivership and, as a consequence, the right to vote at meetings of the debtor's creditors.

This issue considers the most important provisions of the resolution adopted at the Plenary Session of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation (the “SCC”) No. 88, dated 6 December 2013, “On Accrual and Payment of Interest on Creditors’ Claims in Insolvency” (the “Resolution”)1. The Resolution resolves a number of important practical issues and creates new regulations governing, in particular: