The media have been paying considerable attention to the current financial distress of the energy industry in Alberta, focusing primarily on the impact a company’s financial condition can have on its stakeholders, including its employees, shareholders and creditors. But there is another group that is also being affected: counterparties to commercial arrangements with insolvent companies. Increasingly, financially strong companies are having to deal with insolvent joint venture partners, financially distressed operators, and bankrupt lessees.
Effective January 1, 2016, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) altered the reportable event rules for defined benefit pension plans. Under new final regulations, the PBGC substantially reduced the reporting requirements for pension plan administrators, sponsors and contributing employers. In fact, the PBGC estimates that the final regulations will allow 82 percent of pension plans with more than 100 participants to utilize a reporting waiver.
In a proceeding under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (“CCAA”), a judge has discretionary powers to, among other things, order debtor companies into bankruptcy and thereby resolve priority disputes. What should be the standard of review of such discretionary decisions? Historically, the standard has been high.
Following the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Sun Indalex Finance, LLC v. United Steelworkers, [2013] 1 S.C.R. 271 (Indalex), creditors and their advisors have been closely following jurisprudence which considers the scope of the decision.
In his November 20, 2014 decision in CanaSea PetroGas Group Holdings Limited (Re), Sharpe J.A. of the Ontario Court of Appeal did not accept the respondents’ submissions that he should decline to hear an application for leave to appeal a CCAA decision because only a three-judge panel should hear such an application.
The test for an extension of time to serve and file a late Notice of Appeal in Ontario is well-established in the case law:
Is electricity goods or services? That seemingly simple yet confounding question is illustrated by three recent bankruptcy cases (all of which consider whether an electricity provider is entitled to an administrative expense priority under Bankruptcy Code Section 503(b)(9) for “the value of goods received by the debtor” in the ordinary course within 20 days prior to the automatic stay):
Mitigating Risk in African Investments
Lewis Bros. Bakeries, Inc. v. Interstate Brands Corp. (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.)