Borrower beware: in times of distress, your credit documents may give your secured lenders an opportunity to “flip” control of your board

Distress happens, even at companies that once appeared financially solid. When it does, the company, its board (which may be controlled by a sponsor in a public or private equity scenario), and its lenders often enter into restructuring discussions in search of a consensual path forward, typically under the terms of a forbearance agreement.

Introduction

Today, the UK Supreme Court considered for the first time the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of a company’s directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.

Introduction

Earlier this month, the English Insolvency and Companies Court (the “ICC”) made a limited civil restraint order against a shareholder who had repeatedly sought, unmeritoriously, to challenge the 2017 restructuring of Paragon Offshore plc (in liquidation) (“Paragon”) (Hammersley v Soden & Ors [2022] EWHC 223 (Ch)).

In an opinion that mostly flew under the radar in 2021, Judge Christopher Sontchi from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Court”) found a private equity sponsor (the “Sponsor”)¹ liable (and, in some cases, not liable) under various contractual and tort theories in connection with actions the Sponsor took or did not take in its failed efforts to stave off a potential bankruptcy filing of its portfolio company, Allied Systems Holdings, Inc., now known as ASHINC Corporation (“Allied” or the “Company

On 24 February, the Government published draft regulations that, if implemented, will impose new restrictions on pre-pack administration sales to connected parties. For all `substantial disposals' (which will include `pre-pack' sales) to connected parties, taking place within eight weeks of the administrators' appointment, the administrators will either need creditor consent or a report from an independent `evaluator'.

Context

On 28 January, the English High Court handed down the first ever judgment sanctioning a restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (“CA 2006”) (“Plan”) invoking the new cross class cram down procedure introduced into UK law in June 2020.

A recent ruling from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York sent shock waves through the legal and financial community, with some shouting that this “could be a gamestopper for the private equity business.”¹ Although the ruling in In re Nine West LBO Securities Litigation² breaks new ground and arguably narrows the protections available to directors under the normally-broad business judgment rule, there are clear lessons others can take from this saga to prevent a similar fate.

syncreon Group Holdings B.V. (the “Company” and together with its subsidiaries, “syncreon”) completed its landmark financial restructuring today. As has been widely reported, syncreon’s reorganization is perhaps the first-ever use of an English scheme to restructure debt issued by a U.S.-based global enterprise. This also appears to be the first time that CCAA recognition of an English scheme has been granted.

The Restructuring

A recent decision from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation, Case No. 12-2652, 2019 WL 1771786 (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2019) (Cote, J.), has re-examined application of the “securities safe harbor” under section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 101–1532, to the transferees of “financial institutions” in so-called “conduit transactions,” following the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc., 138 S. Ct. 883 (2018).

Whether a contract is executory is an often-litigated issue in bankruptcy because of the treatment afforded to such contracts. Although the Bankruptcy Code does not define the term “executory contract,” most courts follow a variation of the definition provided by Professor Vern Countryman in a 1973 law review article.