Financial support directions and insolvency: the Regulator's statement

In 2009, the owners and management of The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the nation's largest daily circulation newspapers, proposed a bankruptcy plan that attacked secured creditors' rights to bid their loans. When the District Court and the Third Circuit both approved the tactic, the plan gained national attention.

Baker Hostetler serves as court-appointed counsel to Irving H. Picard, SIPA Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC (“BLMIS”). In January of 2011, the SIPA Trustee obtained approval from the United States Bankruptcy Court for a $5 billion settlement for BLMIS customers with allowed claims. At the same time, the Bankruptcy Court also issued a permanent injunction with respect to claims that were duplicative or derivative of the SIPA Trustee’s claims. After an appeal, the District Court affirmed the settlement and the injunction in March of 2012.

Natural England makes geographic information datasets available under the Open Government licence  

This means that datasets about areas of significance for the natural environment such as protected site boundaries, are now made available under a perpetual licence for commercial and non-commercial use. See link to natural England website for further information.

Squatting criminalised

FOS upholds two Keydata complaints against IFAs but concludes that compensation should only be paid in one

The Financial Ombudsman Service ("FOS") has provisionally upheld two complaints made by Mr W and Mr and Mrs K against IFAs who recommended that they invest in the Keydata Bonds in 2005. FOS found that the products presented a greater risk than the investors were willing to take. Interestingly, however, compensation has only been offered to Mr and Mrs K.

In Blight v Brewster [2012] EWHC 165 (Ch) the High Court allowed a creditor to enforce his judgment debt against a debtor's pension funds. The court followed a 2011 Privy Council case (Tasarruf Mevduati Sinorta Fonu v Merrill Lynch Bank and Trust Company & ors) in holding that it had jurisdiction to do so under section 37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Section 37 provides that the court may appoint a receiver in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so.

There have been rumours in the pensions industry for a while that the Bonas case was not in fact the first contribution notice (CN) case to be decided by the Regulator's Determination Panel (Panel).  In March 2012 these rumours proved to be true when the embargo in the case of the Desmond Pension Scheme was lifted and details were published for the first time.  This speedbrief considers the Panel's determination to impose contribution notices on two individuals (Mr Desmond and Mr Gordon) and the Upper Tribunal's decision on various preliminary iss

Bankruptcy cases can be expensive affairs not only for the debtor, but also for creditors trying to obtain payment on their claims. A Bankruptcy Court in the Middle District of Florida recently approved a provision in a chapter 11 plan allowing for certain unsecured creditors to be reimbursed for their legal fees if their participation in the case helped maximize recoveries for other creditors, even though the Bankruptcy Code does not explicitly allow for this kind of reimbursement.

The Court of Appeal has recently published its decision in the case of Woodcock v Cumbria PCT. This case has attracted a significant amount of attention in the media as the case looks at the extent to which employers can rely on cost considerations to justify discrimination. Although the case does not break new ground, it does show that economic factors can be taken into consideration by employers in some cases.

Background

Oftentimes in bankruptcy, when one entity files for bankruptcy relief, the subsidiaries or affiliates also file. Sometimes these entities are "substantively consolidated" for bankruptcy purposes, thus combining the assets and liabilities into a single pool and attributing them to a single entity. Substantive consolidation has been permitted when, for example, debtors have abused corporate formalities or creditors have treated the separate entities as a single economic unit and their affairs were hopelessly entangled.