On the 2 August 2021 Treasury released a consultation paper titled ‘Helping Companies Restructure by Improving Schemes of Arrangement. The consultation is aimed at reforming Australia’s scheme of arrangement procedure.

Insolvency relief extended to 31 December 2020

On Sunday, the Federal Government announced that it will extend until the end of the year insolvency relief measures which were put in place from March 2020 as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic which were due to expire on 25 September 2020.[1]

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Delhi (NCLAT) in the case of Sh. Sushil Ansal Vs Ashok Tripathi and Ors, has reiterated that a decree-holder though covered under the definition of creditor under Section 3(10) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) would not fall within the class of financial creditors and therefore, a decree holder cannot initiate a corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against a corporate debtor with an object to execute a decree.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will leave in its wake a significant increase in commercial chapter 11 filings. Many of these cases will feature extensive litigation involving breach of contract claims, business interruption insurance disputes, and common law causes of action based on novel interpretations of long-standing legal doctrines such as force majeure.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali recently ruled in the Chapter 11 case of Pacific Gas & Electric (“PG&E”) that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) has no jurisdiction to interfere with the ability of a bankrupt power utility company to reject power purchase agreements (“PPAs”).

Introduction

For some time now, there has been uncertainty in Australian insolvency law about whether or not insolvency practitioners should apply the statutory priority regimes established by sections 433, 566 and 561 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) when distributing the assets of a “trading trust”. The decision of the New South Wales Supreme Court in Re Independent Contractor Services (Aust) Pty Ltd (In liq) [No 2] (2016) 305 FLR 222, and the myriad of cases that followed it, suggested that the answer was “no”.

Introduction

The division bench of the Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) comprising of Hon’ble Justice Mr R.F. Nariman and Hon’ble Justice Mr Vineet Saran, in its judgment dated 30 April 2019 in J.K. Jute Mill Mazdoor Morcha v Juggilal Kamlapat Jute Mills Company Ltd & Ors has held that a trade union  is an operational creditor for the purpose of initiating the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC).

Brief Facts

The Supreme Court this week resolved a long-standing open issue regarding the treatment of trademark license rights in bankruptcy proceedings. The Court ruled in favor of Mission Products, a licensee under a trademark license agreement that had been rejected in the chapter 11 case of Tempnology, the debtor-licensor, determining that the rejection constituted a breach of the agreement but did not rescind it.

Few issues in bankruptcy create as much contention as disputes regarding the right of setoff. This was recently highlighted by a decision in the chapter 11 case of Orexigen Therapeutics in the District of Delaware.