Voyager Digital Assets, Inc., a leading cryptocurrency brokerage and lending platform, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 5, 2022 in the Southern District of New York following a recent financial crisis impacting the crypto industry, which investors are calling the “crypto winter.” The filing was followed by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Celsius Networks. While the situation is fluid, these two filings could be the beginning of a series of bankruptcies by major cryptocurrency companies.

In het tweede kwartaal van 2022 zijn op www.rechtspraak.nl 52 uitspraken gepubliceerd waarin de ingestelde vordering gegrond was op bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid. Het betrof 3 uitspraken van de Hoge Raad, 6 conclusies van de advocaat-generaal bij de Hoge Raad, 15 uitspraken van de gerechtshoven en 28 van rechtbanken.

In deze Kwartaalupdate Bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid voor Q2 2022 is een selectie

gemaakt uit deze uitspraken. De navolgende onderwerpen komen aan bod:

01. Bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid en matiging

(Hoge Raad 13 mei 2022) 2

Following a July 6, 2022 memorandum opinion from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, lenders and noteholders seeking to preserve the priority of their liens must make any desired subordination protections explicit in their security documents. Judge Craig T. Goldblatt’s decision in In re TPC Group Inc. upholds a prepetition “uptier” transaction and narrows the issues before the Bankruptcy Court regarding TPC Group Inc.’s desired entry into a debtor-in-possession loan with an ad hoc group of noteholders over the dissent of minority holders.

In deze Kroniek wordt een selectie van de tussen mei 2021 en mei 2022 door de Hoge Raad gewezen arresten besproken. Daarbij komen onder meer uitspraken op het gebied van beroeps- en bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid, productaansprakelijkheid en werkgeversaansprakelijkheid aan de orde.

Supreme Court 22 January 2022, ECLI:NL:HR:2020:80 - www.rechtspraak.nl

Introduction

Recently, the Supreme Court dealt with the following question: can the bankruptcy trustee recover a payment made from a bank account with a debit balance in the name of the bankrupt company after the bankruptcy date, as undue payment due to a breach of the fixation principle or the equality of creditors principle?

Hoge Raad 22 januari 2022, ECLI:NL:HR:2022:80 (www.rechtspraak.nl).

Introductie

In het onderhavige arrest buigt de Hoge Raad zich over de volgende vraag: kan de curator een girale betaling, gedaan na datum faillissement vanaf een op naam van de failliet staande bankrekening met een debetsaldo, als onverschuldigd terugvorderen wegens strijdigheid met het fixatiebeginsel of de paritas creditorum?

On March 14, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (the “Fifth Circuit”) revisited the issue of the rejection of filed-rate contracts in bankruptcy where such contracts are governed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”). The ruling marks the first time the Fifth Circuit has addressed this issue since its 2004 decision in In re Mirant Corp.¹ In Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v.

For a company with robust data protection and recovery practices, a ransomware attack may cause a few extra headaches, but it won’t wipe the company out. Companies without those protections in place, however, risk allowing ransomware to bankrupt their entire enterprise.

A recent order from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Court”) allowed a debtor to reopen a completed auction based on a significantly more attractive, but untimely, bid. The late bid was approximately three times the cash consideration of the previously declared winning bid, and also provided for the additional containment of potential environmental risks. The decision is being appealed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “District Court”).

Judge Craig Whitley’s recent transfer of the LTL Management case will bring a high-profile "Texas Two-Step" chapter 11 bankruptcy to New Jersey, and it may open a new chapter in how courts approach the novel transaction designed to isolate and address certain mass-tort liabilities.