Insolvency practitioners (‘IP’s) tasked with dealing with an often failing business for the purposes of protecting creditors’ interests face a number of issues. The Regulator has sought to provide clarity in two particular areas that IPs come across in their work by issuing notes (the ‘Notes’) on these issues (September 2015).

Trustee Appointments

Just before Christmas last year, the High Court handed down a judgment in a bankruptcy case which was contrary to a High Court decision in a previous pensions and bankruptcy case on essentially the same issues. It has left this area in some uncertainty for the time being and is the latest in a long history of developments in this area.

A little bit of history

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held in Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP v. Barnet (In re Barnet), 2013 BL 341634 (2d Cir. Dec. 11, 2013), that section 109(a) of the Bankruptcy Code, which requires a debtor "under this title" to have a domicile, a place of business, or property in the U.S., applies in cases under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Section 502(b)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code caps the amount of a lessor’s claim against a debtor-lessee for damages arising from the termination of a real property lease. The statutory cap is calculated according to a formula that considers, among other things, the date on which the lessor “repossessed” or the debtor-lessee “surrendered” the leased property. Because those terms are not defined in the Bankruptcy Code, however, courts disagree as to whether state or federal law should determine their meanings for the purpose of calculating the allowed amount of the lessor’s claims.