Will Congress Finally Act?
This is the third in a series of Alerts regarding the proposals made by the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Commission to Reform Chapter 11 Business Bankruptcies. It covers the Commission’s recommendations about the fiduciary obligations of a Chapter 11 debtor’s directors and officers and proposed changes to typical defenses asserted to state causes of action. For copies of this or any prior articles about the Commission, please contact any BakerHostetler bankruptcy attorney.
Director and Officer Fiduciary Duties in Chapter 11
This is the second in a series of Alerts regarding the proposals made by the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Select Commission to Reform Chapter 11 Business Bankruptcies. It covers the Commission’s recommendations about the paying of “critical vendors” and other unsecured creditors at the very beginning of a bankruptcy case. The Commission’s recommendations are set forth below. For copies of this Alert, or the prior article about the Commission’s recommendations regarding secured lenders, please contact any BakerHostetler bankruptcy attorney.
Congress rarely accomplishes anything these days, but the need to reform Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code seems to have “crossed over the aisle.” When the Bankruptcy Code was enacted in 1978, America boasted the world’s dominant manufacturing economy. Corporate debt was mostly unsecured trade debt. Secured loans provided tangible asset financing for property, plant, and equipment.
On March 16, 2015, the Spanish subsidiary of Banca Privada d’Andorra, Banco de Madrid, sought bankruptcy protection in the midst of a run on the bank by depositors. The run and bankruptcy were the result of FinCEN’s March 10, 2015, announcement that it would bar U.S. banks from providing correspondent banking services to Banca Privada d’Andorra or any bank that processes transactions for Banca Privada d’Andorra.
The Companies Act 2014 (the "Act") was recently passed by the Irish parliament and is expected to be brought into force on 1 June 2015 (the "Commencement Date"). The Act is largely a consolidation and modernisation exercise.
However, there are a number of significant areas which modify existing companies legislation and which lenders will need to consider both in the run-up to the Commencement Date and afterwards. In particular these relate to:
The Court of Appeal has recently clarified that if a foreign company, being a shareholder of a Cayman Islands company, issues a winding up petition against that company and there is evidence that the petitioning company will be unable to pay an adverse costs order if the respondent is successful at trial, then the Cayman Islands court has an inherent jurisdiction to order the petitioning foreign company to provide security for the respondent's costs – Re Dyxnet Holdings1.
Last week, the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Limited (in Liquidation) (the "Fund") v Stefan Peterson and Hans Ekstrom (the "Directors"). The appeal from the first instance decision was allowed and the Grand Court's order of 26 August 2011 was set aside.
On 26 November 2014 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the "Privy Council") handed down its judgment in the appeal brought by Stichting Shell Pensioenfonds ("Shell") against the joint liquidators of Fairfield Sentry Ltd ("Fairfield Sentry") (the "Liquidators"), the largest feeder fund to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC ("BLMIS").1
On 10 November 2014, the Privy Council handed down its decision in Singularis Holdings Limited v PricewaterhouseCoopers1, together with its decision in a related case, PricewaterhouseCoopers v Saad Investments Company Limited2, both on appeal from the Court of Appeal in Bermuda. The decision provides guidance on the application of the principle of modified universalism.