In a recent legal development that underscores the intricate interplay between federal bankruptcy law and the cannabis industry, a court case has emerged involving a bankruptcy filing by an employee of a cannabis company. It’s well established that, because cannabis is generally considered a controlled substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), certain cannabis related companies are precluded from obtaining debt relief through bankruptcy. Now individuals employed by cannabis companies might find themselves in the same boat. In Blumsack v. Harrington, 2024 Bankr.
Comme nous l’avions prédit dans nos numéros précédents de L’Actualité en insolvabilité, l’augmentation attendue du nombre de dossiers d’insolvabilité des entreprises s’est matérialisée en 2023. Dans ce numéro de L’Actualité en insolvabilité, nous exposons en détail les conclusions suivantes tirées de nos données : – Le nombre de dossiers d’insolvabilité d’entreprises a atteint son plus haut niveau en 2023 depuis 2019, soit une augmentation de 41,4 % comparativement au nombre de dossiers d’insolvabilité d’entreprises en 2020 et une augmentation de 30,7 % comparativement à celui de 2019.
Insolvency Now Business Insolvencies in Canada Hit a Record Post-Pandemic High in 2023 Issue 10
In a welcome clarification for administrators, the UK Supreme Court in the recent case of R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court[1], held that an administrator appointed under the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986) is not an “officer” of the company for the purposes of section 194(3) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA).
In this client alert, we set out the key findings by the Court of Appeal in Darty Holdings SAS v Geoffrey Carton-Kelly [2023] EWCA Civ 1135, which considers an appeal against the High Court decision that a repayment by Comet Group plc (“Comet”) of £115 million of unsecured intra-group debt to Kesa International Ltd (“KIL”) was a preference under section 239 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the “Act”).
Background to the Case
ntroduction The priority of governments and financial authorities around the world in 2023, including in Canada, has been to reduce inflation while monitoring and addressing financial sector risks. The Bank of Canada estimates that inflation will likely remain near 3% through 2024, given strong household spending levels supported by tight labour markets, population growth and high levels of accumulated household savings.
Whilst commonplace in the U.S., uptier transactions in which a borrower teams up with a subset of creditors to issue new “super priority” debt by amending or exchanging existing debt documents, have not been widely used in Europe.
However, with increasing macro economic pressures and financial market instability, we may see more European borrowers taking advantage of flexibility in cov-lite debt documentation to implement liability management transactions as an alternative to, or even as part of, more formal restructurings.
On September 20, 2023, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California (“Court”) confirmed a plan for a cannabis-related business (“Debtor”) to sell its equity interests in a Canadian cannabis company, Lowell Farms, and distribute the proceeds to its creditors.
This week, the Ninth Circuit addresses whether text messages can violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on “prerecorded voice” messages, and it considers whether debtors who paid statutory fees under an unconstitutionally nonuniform bankruptcy provision are entitled to a refund.
2023 has been a remarkable year with the past several months displaying an upward trend for the Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group at Morrison Foerster. We would like to provide our friends and clients with an overview of our current matters, each of which demonstrate our track record of being a go-to firm for complex restructurings across industries and jurisdictions.