Proposed changes in Italian law mean that it should become easier to create certain types of security in Italy and to recover debt. The relevant law is Decree-law no. 59/2016 (“Urgent provisions on insolvency and executive procedures’’) which came into force on 4 May 2016 and which should be converted into binding law by early July.

The main changes introduced by the Decree are as follows:

InGrayson Consulting, Inc. v. Wachovia Securities, LLC (In re Derivium Capital LLC), 716 F.3d 355 (4th Cir. 2013), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit examined whether certain securities transferred and payments made during the course of a Ponzi scheme could be avoided as fraudulent transfers under sections 544 and 548 of the Bankruptcy Code. The court upheld a judgment denying avoidance of pre-bankruptcy transfers of securities because the debtor did not have an “interest” in the securities at the time of the transfers.

On January 10, 2012, a Florida bankruptcy court ruled in In re Pearlman, 462 B.R. 849 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2012), that substantive consolidation is purely a bankruptcy remedy and that it accordingly did not have the power to consolidate the estate of a debtor in bankruptcy with the assets and affairs of a nondebtor. In so ruling, the court staked out a position on a contentious issue that has created a widening rift among bankruptcy and appellate courts regarding the scope of a bankruptcy court’s jurisdiction over nondebtor entities.