Fulltext Search

The well known travails of Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the New York Mets, have all converged this past week. He, his partner Saul Katz and their families and affiliated enterprises (the “Wilpon/Katz Group”) lost several hundred million dollars when Bernard Madoff’s long running Ponzi scheme finally unraveled at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

In 2008, the catastrophic effect of the credit crunch spread to most world economies. As in previous recessions, insolvency has affected increasing numbers of individuals and companies, and parties to agreements to arbitrate are increasingly likely to find themselves dealing with insolvent companies. What are the issues to bear in mind?

1/ Prior insolvency

The Financial Markets and Insolvency (Settlement Finality and Financial Collateral Arrangements) (Amendment) Regulations 2010 came into force on 6 April 2011.