Recently, in In re Moon Group Inc., a bankruptcy court said no, but the district court, which has agreed to review the decision on an interlocutory appeal, seems far less sure.

The curiosity with claims based on transactions defrauding creditors is that a transaction can fall within its scope when a debtor is solvent and may never ultimately enter an insolvency process, and there is no requirement of fraud. Such claims fall under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the act), and do require a debtor to have entered into a transaction at an undervalue (drawing on claims under section 238 and 339 of the act, in corporate and personal insolvency respectively) with the intention of putting assets beyond the reach of creditors.

In the recent case of Avanti Communications Limited (in administration) [2023] EWHC 940 (Ch), the High Court revisited the perpetually knotty question: what level of control is necessary for a charge over assets to take effect as a fixed, rather than floating, charge?

Yes, says the Delaware Bankruptcy Court in the case of CII Parent, Inc., cementing the advice routinely given by bankruptcy counsel to borrowers in default. We always counsel borrower clients in default of the risk associated with lenders taking unilateral actions pre-filing, stripping debtors of valuable options and assets. Thus, we normally recommend to always obtain a forbearance and undertake the preparations required to file a bankruptcy petition immediately upon forbearance termination, although whether or not to file depends on variety of factors that should be considered.

The Second Circuit recently held that a non-party to an assumed executory contract is not entitled to a cure payment (although it may be so entitled if is a third-party beneficiary of the contract). The result would have seemed obvious to bankruptcy practitioners. So, what in the world made the party pursuing payment take this to the Second Circuit? Well, surprisingly, as the Second Circuit decision shows, the answer is not found in the plain text of the Bankruptcy Code. And while it was argued prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, No. 21-908, 598 U.S.

A mortgage loan repurchase facility (more casually referred to as a "repo") is a financing structure commonly utilized to finance mortgage loans. These facilities are utilized by both residential and commercial mortgage loan originators and aggregators to finance mortgage loans that they originate or acquire. The structure is favored by liquidity providers in the mortgage loan finance arena due to its preferential "safe harbor" treatment under the United States Bankruptcy Code (the "Bankruptcy Code"), as further described below.

The so-called crypto-winter and associated high profile insolvencies of major players such as FTX, Three Arrows Capital and Genesis may have dampened enthusiasm for this new asset class in some quarters. However, while volatility is likely to be an ongoing characteristic in the short and medium term, it is probably better to view recent events as a period of market correction rather than the "beginning of the end" of crypto assets.

The future for a new class of digital assets

Lenders often attempt to limit what a borrower can do outside the ordinary course of business by negotiating contractual protections. Some of these provisions are designed to make the borrowers bankruptcy remote by, for example, requiring the borrower’s Board to include an independent director whose consent is required for a bankruptcy filing. Others, as was the case we discuss here, however, go further by including contractual rights that limit a borrower’s ability to file for bankruptcy without the lender’s consent.

The High Court has approved the sale of a portfolio of securities owned by Sova Capital Limited (Sova) to an unsecured creditor in consideration of the release of that creditor’s claim. The court’s approval of the transaction in this case marks the first reported decision on an unsecured credit bid for the assets of a company in administration (Re Sova Capital Limited (in special administration) [2023] EWHC 452 (Ch)).

Facts

On Sunday, March 12th, the Treasury Department, the FDIC, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) (the Agencies) announced that the New York Department of Financial Services had appointed the FDIC as receiver for Signature Bank, which was closed on March 11th.  Subsequently, the FDIC announced that it had transferred substantially all of the assets and all of the deposits of Signature Bank to the newly created Signature Bridge Bank, N.A.  Early on March 13th, the FDIC announced a similar transfer of assets and deposits to Silicon Valley Bank, N.A., another n