In legal parlance, the term “standing” embraces several discrete doctrines that govern the capacity of a party to sue and appear before a particular court. These concepts' fluidity should not obscure their importance: a party’s standing is a perpetual jurisdictional question, open to review throughout the lifespan of a particular case or matter and at every appellate level.

Types of Standing

Two Generally Applicable Forms

Can a liquidator run an unjust enrichment claim to seek to recover PAYE and NIC liabilities from a company’s directors arising from the company’s use of a “disguised remuneration” employee benefit trust (“EBT”) scheme? Based on the findings of ICC Judge Barber in the case of Re Ethos Solutions Ltd, the answer is “no”.

EBTs: Background

On Sunday evening, March 12, 2023, the US Department of the Treasury, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board (Federal Reserve) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released a joint statement announcing various actions to stabilize the US banking system, in light of the widely publicized failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank (Signature Bank), each of which was closed by their respective state chartering authorities, with the FDIC appointed as receiver.

Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof GmbH ("GKK"), based in Essen, Germany, is the second largest department store chain in Europe with 131 stores and 18,000 employees. As some may recall, this is not the first time things have gone badly for the department store chain. Back in the 2000s, under CEO Thomas Middelhoff, who was sentenced to three years in prison in 2014 for 27 counts of embezzlement and tax evasion, the company's balance sheets were less than stellar.

An all too typical fact pattern involves a small-time ne’er-do-well infringing on the rights of a much bigger corporation. When the corporation is forced to bring a lawsuit, the “little guy” infringer cries poverty and seeks a settlement. An oft-used tactic of corporations is to settle the matter quickly (and before too much in attorneys’ fees has been incurred) for a relatively modest sum (or even no money at all) while also including a mechanism by which any breach of the settlement agreement triggers the filing of an agreed judgment for a large sum of money.

Once asserted, may a party alter it? Once claimed, may a party contradict it?

A party’s ability to abandon a previously taken position and champion its converse in a later case or proceeding often depends on one of the law’s more esoteric prohibitions: that kaleidoscopic smorgasbord of precepts collectively known as “judicial estoppel.”

What Is “Judicial Estoppel,” Precisely?

WithinIn re LTL Management, LLC, No. 22-2003 (3d Cir. Jan. 30, 2023), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its decision on the J&J “Texas –Two Step” bankruptcy saga. The Court’s decision complimented the parties and the lower court for their thorough analysis of the issues, but refocused practitioners on a basic bankruptcy principle:

[A bankruptcy filing] gives to the honest but unfortunate debtor…a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt.

In a unanimous decision Bartenwerfer v Buckley, No. 21-908, 598 U.S. (2023), the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the breath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code’s discharge provision – and exceptions thereto – and held that a debt resulting from fraud (even where the debtor was not directly involved) is, nevertheless, nondischargeable. While the Court’s principles provide a roadmap for analyzing potentially nondischargeable claims, it also expands what was originally thought to be a “narrow” exception to discharge.

One concept—“center of main interests,” or COMI for short, one of the more significant elements borrowed from international law and incorporated into Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code—sits at the heart of the latter, enacted in 2005 as the latest U.S. legislative attempt to handle cross-border insolvencies and international restructurings.

In spite of this notion’s importance, however, bankruptcy and appellate federal courts have long divided over a thresholder issue: as of which date should a foreign debtor’s COMI be determined?

Supply chains are facing a fresh barrage of challenges. There are an almost infinite variety of issues that can arise within the supply chain. Minor irritants that historically may have just made business a bit more difficult to transact can, in the current environment, cumulatively exert significant pressure. Additionally, an over reliance on a third party or failure to spot the weakest links in this chain could have a catastrophic impact on your business

In our latest insight, we consider how to identify pinch points in your supply chain and de-risk them.