Under Irish and UK law, company directors owe fiduciary duties to act in good faith in the interests of the company. The company's interests in this context usually means the collective best interests of the members. However, UK and Irish authorities have developed directors' common law duties, such that in cases of insolvency, directors have a duty to consider the interests of the company's creditors.

In a William Fry article published earlier this year, we discussed the Irish government's approval to opt-in to a regulation amending Annexes A and B to the European Insolvency Regulation 2015/848 (EIR Recast) regarding the recognition of insolvency processes recently introduced in other EU Member States.

We recently discussed the establishment of the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) with effect from 7 July 2022, and the commencement of the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Act 2021 (CEA Act). With the commencement of the CEA Act, some insolvency-related amendments to the Companies Act 2014 (CA 2014) are now in force.

Summary

With effect from 9 May 2022, a new Order 74C of the Rules of the Superior Courts came into operation. Order 74C facilitates the operation of the Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Companies) Act 2021, which inserted a new Part 10A into the Companies Act 2014 (Part 10A).

On 11 May 2022, the Dáil and Seanad approved Ireland's opt-in to a regulation amending the Annexes to the European Insolvency Regulation, 2015/848 (EIR Recast). Regulation 2021/2260 (Amending Regulation) which replaces Annex A and B to EIR Recast came into force in January 2022.

The bankruptcy Pegasus: stalking horse agreements in aviation

Summary

If a person presents a petition for their own bankruptcy (“self-petition”), are there any safeguards to ensure that the self-petition is genuine, as opposed to a cynical device by the person to buy themselves time to pay, or to give themselves some negotiating position with their creditors?

This interesting question was considered in a recent Hong Kong judgment.

Summary

With government support instigated by the Covid-19 pandemic coming to an end, there is an inevitability that some hotel owners will sadly not have the liquidity to continue to operate in the medium term. Eager investors are seeing opportunities and are waiting to deploy capital. We examine the main considerations for investors who are looking to purchase distressed hotel assets out of an insolvency process.

General Introduction

In a recent post, I discussed three situations in which a debtor in bankruptcy might find itself dispossessed of assets that appeared to be property of the bankruptcy estate. This article expands on that general idea and presents a compendium of situations in which creditors or circumstances may deprive a debtor of assets or their value.

Editor’s Note:  this is likely not an asset upon which you should base your reorganization – see below.