The following briefing provides a round-up of the Cayman legal and regulatory developments during the third quarter of 2022 that may be of interest to funds clients. We are pleased to note that there is nothing critical or requiring immediate action at this time.

Summary of recent legal and regulatory developments

Two years on: review of CIGA permanent measures

Since our last blog on this topic, the English court has provided further guidance on certain key issues and novel features relevant to restructuring plans and schemes of arrangement in its recent judgments on Amigo Loans, Smile Telecoms, EDF & Man, Re Safari Holdings (Löwen Play) and Haya. This piece provides an overview of key points from these cases.

Government support during the pandemic and extremely strong credit markets saw exceptional fund raising levels in 2021, in spite of a slower Q4. Borrowers secured increasingly favourable terms from their lenders, with only a little pushback as the year progressed. Private credit continued to compete for greater market share and found interesting opportunities in smaller and more complex names. 2021 has proved to be a record year for financings and the continued availability of cheap capital, with reasonable stability and outperformance from riskier credits.

The restructuring plan has so far proven to be a powerful tool to facilitate restructurings of complex capital structures. Two recent cases provide further helpful guidance for advisers when formulating a restructuring plan and for investors who may be affected by its terms.

Amicus Finance plc (in administration) ("Amicus")

Some further important guidance by Zacaroli J in the recent judgment on Hurricane Energy. In that case, the company (with the support of the company's ad hoc committee of bond holders who were going to take 95% of the equity under the plan in return for certain adjustments to the bonds) sought to cram down the class of dissenting shareholders through a restructuring plan ("plan").

This case is a reminder to both debtors and nominees that corporate law formalities must be respected and that the insolvency lens may affect the treatment of connected party transactions in future valuations and restructuring processes.

The Regis landlords made multiple complaints regarding the disclosure and valuation of connected party transactions and the large uniform discount applied to multiple landlords for voting purposes (75%). The only argument found in their favour was the mistreatment of one of the intercompany loans.

Key takeaways -

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.

Over the past two or three years, we have seen an increasing number of cases where a client holds and wishes to sell or transfer shares in a Cayman Islands company which is in liquidation, or is seeking to purchase shares in such a company from another party.  In those circumstances, the transfer of the shares would be void absent the validation of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, as a result of section 99 of the Companies Law (2013 Revision) ("Section 99").  Section 99 is in the following terms:

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: