When a company goes into liquidation, creditors often wonder whether they will recover their debts. One available option to achieve this is funding legal action to help the liquidator recover assets.
Singapore's insolvency legislation allows creditors who fund liquidators' recovery actions to have priority over other creditors in the distribution of recovered assets. This improves the viability of commencing insolvency proceedings as an asset recovery tool.
Singapore's economy is expected to see slower growth in 2023 after its rapid recovery from the pandemic in 2022, with the Ministry of Trade and Industry recently narrowing the GDP growth forecast for the year.1 As industries continue to feel the pinch of high inflation and interest rates, creditors and debtors alike may be considering appropriate solutions for companies which struggle to pay their debts.
Singapore has earned a budding reputation as a hub for debt restructuring and insolvency in Asia, with its transparent legal system and judicial expertise. This growth can also be attributed to enduring efforts to innovate and reform.
To enhance Singapore as a forum of choice in international restructuring and insolvency proceedings, the Rules of Court were amended with effect from 1 October 2022 to allow restructuring and insolvency matters which are international and commercial in nature to now be heard in the Singapore International Commercial Court ("SICC").
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”).
This article was first published in Digital Asset.
“Immutable” is a term that is frequently used when people talk about blockchain and the benefit of using this technology for record-keeping.
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.
The judicial power of the United States is vested in courts created under Article III of the Constitution. However, Congress created the current bankruptcy court system over 40 years ago pursuant to Article I of the Constitution rather than under Article III.
Southeastern Grocers (operator of the Winn-Dixie, Bi Lo and Harvey’s supermarket chains) recently completed a successful restructuring of its balance sheet through a “prepackaged” chapter 11 case in the District of Delaware. As part of the deal with the holders of its unsecured bonds, the company agreed that under the plan of reorganization it would pay in cash the fees and expenses of the trustee for the indenture under which the unsecured bonds were issued.