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Amendments to the director disqualification regime, enacted in 2015, enable the Insolvency Service (on the request of a creditor of an insolvent company) to seek a compensatory remedy against a disqualified director for the benefit of the creditor(s). This empowers a creditor to take action where an insolvency officer may be unable, or unwilling, to do so.

This case relates to the principle that creditors with the benefit of a third-party debt order, are ostensibly in a better position than other unsecured creditors of an insolvent estate.

The Financial Conduct Authority (“the FCA”) issued a Final Notice against London Capital & Finance plc (“LCF”) for contravening regulatory requirements (pursuant to section 205 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“the Act”)). The Final Notice contained a statement censuring LCF for failing to ensure that its financial promotions were fair, clear and not misleading.

On Wednesday 27 September 2023, Mishcon de Reya hosted the first in a new series of Disputes Essentials breakfast seminars, which aim to provide the latest updates and practical insights on essential dispute-related topics.

In a decision likely to have a knock-on effect for future fraudulent transfer defense and valuation litigation, the Delaware bankruptcy court recently ruled that the price agreed in the sale of an oil and gas company closed by market participants represents the reasonably equivalent value for the assets being sold and is more reliable evidence of value than expert testimony prepared for the purposes of litigation.

In the wake of several high-profile collapses of cryptocurrency exchanges, most notably FTX, Celsius, and Voyager, the state of the digital asset landscape is ever-changing, with more questions and landmines than clear paths forward. Among the many issues that arise in these bankruptcy cases is the question of how to treat and classify digital assets, especially cryptocurrencies—e.g., who owns the cryptocurrencies deposited by customers.

US governmental authorities, including the US Department of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, took actions to provide both insured and uninsured depositors of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) (as well as Signature Bank) access to their deposits beginning Monday, March 13. However, despite these actions, many customers are still dealing with the aftermath of an uncertain weekend, and practical questions remain to be answered.

We have identified four judgments from 2022 which are significant for those in the private equity sector and may have particular relevance for sponsors, shareholders, management teams and/or appointees to boards. In this overview we summarise the key points and some of the practical implications.

The decisions we address are:

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its long-anticipated decision in the Ultra Petroleum make-whole and post-petition interest dispute, with the majority holding that the solvent-debtor exception survived the enactment of the US Bankruptcy Code.