In an effort to broaden his appeal to members of the left-leaning electorate, Joe Biden endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy plan during this past weekend. Ms. Warren’s plan, a material piece of the platform from her former presidential bid, is focused on protecting struggling individual consumers by reducing bankruptcy costs, streamlining the process, and expanding debt forgiveness. Like many of her plans, Ms. Warren’s bankruptcy plan is detailed and generally includes the following proposals:

On April 4, 2020, the State of New York will join ranks with the vast majority of other states implementing a version of the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act (the “UVTA”). Only Maryland continues to apply the Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act (the “UFCA”), a law with its origins as early as 1918. A handful of other states that did not adopt the UFCA instead retain their varied, state-specific transfer laws. The uniform legislation was first promulgated in 1984 as an amendment to the UFCA, referred to as the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“UFTA”).

The latest amendments to the Kazakhstan Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Law were signed on April 2, 2019, and became effective from April 14. The amendments enhance the priority right of secured creditors through the acceptance of pledged assets in kind or the implementation of self-facilitated foreclosure over pledged assets. Notably, the law provides that pledged assets are carved out from bankruptcy estates.

Priority of Claims of Secured Creditors

To exercise a priority right, a secured creditor must comply with the following procedure:

A new wave of bankruptcy filings for leveraged oil and gas companies has begun and this time it may involve more prepacks and less optimism. Beginning in late 2015 and continuing through 2017, downtown Houston was filled with bankruptcy lawyers. Highly leveraged exploration and production (or E&P) companies had become crippled by falling oil prices and the resulting impact on the value of their producing and non-producing reserves in their borrowing bases.

The UK government has published a draft Finance Bill 2020, which includes a provision that, if enacted, will give HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) secondary preferential creditor status for certain taxes which a company has collected but failed to pay to HMRC on the date it enters insolvency.

New Priority Status

Going forward, lenders must take precautionary measures to protect themselves. Anticipating the risk of a U.S. bankruptcy case is a crucial first step.

Directors and officers of private companies are responsible for managing and running business. This responsibility is not limited to disciplinary liability (such as termination of employment), but also involves civil law liability (such as payment of damages) as well as administrative and even criminal liability. In some cases, the liability may be broad and contain no reasonable exceptions that might be available in other jurisdictions. This LawFlash summarizes the extent of liability that company directors and officers could face under Kazakhstan law.

When a business entity that is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is closely related to another business entity, FERC takes the position that under some circumstances it may treat the two different legal entities as if they were one single entity.

The Singapore High Court recently issued the first-ever super-priority order for debts arising from rescue financing under Section 211E(1)(b) of the amended insolvency laws in the Companies Act. The decision shows that the court is open to adopting relatively unique deal structures, and could be a benefit for more business-centric solutions.

The court noted that the DOJ might prosecute cannabis-related businesses under the CSA, notwithstanding plan confirmation. Thus, Garvin may have foreclosed any future DOJ CSA-based noneconomic objections to cannabis reorganizations.