We're often asked to advise on what is the appropriate level of liquidated damages for delay in a building contract. Whilst this is a commercial issue and therefore outside the remit of legal advice there are some principles relating to the application of liquidated damages that we can bring to the parties' attention.

This is the message the courts are sending to office holders seeking approval of their fees. In two recent English High Court decisions, both handed down by HHJ Cawson KC, the courts clearly expect office-holders, as fiduciaries, to produce a sufficient and proportionate level of information to justify the level of fees being claimed.

The question of whether it is competent for the court to order a retrospective administration order has been the subject of much debate before the English courts. However, until now, there have been no reported Scottish decisions dealing with the point.

Shareholder disputes can often be complex and emotionally charged, particularly in small or family-owned companies where personal relationships and business interests are deeply intertwined. When such disputes reach an impasse, the law provides several mechanisms for resolution. In particular, disgruntled shareholders have the ability to bring statutory based claims against the company.

Since the first Johnson & Johnson talc bankruptcy was filed in 2021, Judge Michael Kaplan has faced countless disagreements in the US Bankruptcy Court. These range from discovery fights, disputes over administration of tens of thousands of individual claims and all-out conflict over the total amount in controversy.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued its latest bankruptcy opinion in MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC, holding that the Bankruptcy Code’s rule against invalidating 363 sales after appeal is not an iron-clad jurisdictional bar, but rather a mere statutory limitation.[1]

Just hours after the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey entered an order dismissing the Chapter 11 Case of Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, LTL Management, as a bad faith filing, LTL filed for Chapter 11 protection again in the same Bankruptcy Court.

Delaware Judge Brendan Shannon has joined calls for reforming Section 546(e) of the bankruptcy code, echoing concerns that the section’s safe harbor from fraudulent transfer liability has allowed investors to “loot privately held companies to the detriment of their non-insider creditors with effective impunity.”[1]

In a decision that once again evidences the Fifth Circuit’s strong stance on the finality of asset sales in bankruptcy absent a stay of the applicable order, on March 8, 2023 the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas published a memorandum opinion and order affirming a bankruptcy court’s exercise of Bankruptcy Code provisions to strip subrogation rights of certain sureties (the “Sureties”) against an asset purchaser.

In a decision that may provide much-needed boundaries around the permissibility of debtors created from “out-of-the-box” prepetition corporate transactions, on January 30, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a unanimous opinion dismissing Johnson & Johnson subsidiary LTL Management, LLC’s (“LTL”) chapter 11 case pending in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey as not being filed in good faith.¹