The bankruptcy Pegasus: stalking horse agreements in aviation
Overview
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.
Going, going, gone. Most people might associate those words with fine art, not bankruptcy. But in In re 388 Route 22 Readington Holdings, LLC, the question arose: is value reflected by an active, non-collusive auction, while not dispositive, strong evidence of fair value under section 363(b) of the Bankruptcy Code?
As cross-border restructurings proliferate, especially in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, companies with global assets and operations may utilize chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) to facilitate cooperation between U.S. and foreign bankruptcy courts and protect assets located in the U.S. One doctrine central to relief under chapter 15 is the principle of comity, which refers to the recognition one nation’s legal system accords to another nation’s judicial proceedings. In chapter 15 proceedings, U.S.
The Executive Summary provided a short version of the facts. The next few paragraphs provide a longer version, or you can skip to the next section.
Executive Summary
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.