The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a “pandemic” on March 11, 2020.

The 2005 Report of the Expert Committee on Company Law (JJ Irani Committee Report) had noted that an effective insolvency law:

“should strike a balance between rehabilitation and liquidation. It should provide an opportunity for genuine effort to explore restructuring/ rehabilitation of potentially viable businesses with consensus of stakeholders reasonably arrived at. Where revival / rehabilitation is demonstrated as not being feasible, winding up should be resorted to.

In a decision released on March 29, 2011, CDX Liquidating Trust v. Venrock Assocs., et al., 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 6390 (7th Cir. March 29, 2011), the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, reversing the district court’s ruling, held that a director’s disclosure of a conflict, in and of itself, is insufficient to protect that director from liability for breach of fiduciary duty or disloyalty arising from that conflict.

In what appears to be a matter of first impression, Bankruptcy Judge Robert D. Drain, United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, has held that a statutory safe harbor against constructive fraudulent conveyance actions under the Bankruptcy Code involving securities transfers does not apply to the private sale of securities, even when there are no allegations of illegal conduct or fraud involved in the underlying transaction.

On February 7, 2011, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a highly significant opinion in two consolidated appeals from the order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York affirming the bankruptcy court’s confirmation of a chapter 11 plan of reorganization for DBSD North America and its subsidiaries (DBSD).

Introduction