In light of the UK’s cram down and director-friendly processes, in particular its scheme of arrangement model, major European economies such as France, Germany and Italy have worked hard to develop regimes that give greater emphasis to pre-insolvency alternatives. These new regimes create cram down mechanisms and encourage debtor-in-possession (DIP) financings, ultimately aiming to make restructuring plans more accessible, more efficient, and crucially more reliable; essentially more in tune with the Anglo-American approach to insolvency and restructuring.

English schemes of arrangement under the Companies Act 2006 (Schemes) have been increasingly used by non-English companies as a powerful tool to restructure their financial indebtedness. Recent prominent examples of German companies that have utilized Schemes to cramdown non-consenting or “holdout” creditors in order to restructure the company’s balance sheet include TeleColumbus, Rodenstock and Primacom.

There are several reasons for this trend:

On December 15, 2010, Judge James Peck of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the Bankruptcy Court) approved Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc.’s (LBSF) motion (the Motion) for approval of a settlement among LBSF, BNY Corporate Trustee Services Limited (BNY), Perpetual Trustee Company Limited (Perpetual) and others relating to certain note issuance and swap transactions with Saphir Finance Public Limited Company (Saphir) under a program known as the Dante Program.

Introduction