Recently, the Belgian Continuity of Enterprises Act (hereinafter the “Act”) celebrated the fifth anniversary of its adoption by the Belgian parliament. Since its entry into force on 1 April 2009, the Act has been quite successful: in comparison with the former “Judicial Composition Act” of 17 July 1997, a significantly larger number of enterprises have had recourse to it. The Act does indeed offer a new range of options – including a potential judicial settlement with debtors – intended to help distressed companies to recover from their financial situation.

Pour rappel, la convention collective de travail n° 32bis (ci-après « CCT 32bis ») traite tant du transfert conventionnel d’entreprise – chapitre II de la CCT 32bis – que de la reprise d’actifs après faillite – chapitre III de la CCT 32bis.

En décembre 2013, Chypre a notifié à la Commission européenne une aide de 102,9 millions EUR pour la restructuration de la compagnie aérienne nationale Cyprus Airways. Le plan de restructuration vise à rétablir la situation financière de l’entreprise qui rencontre des difficultés depuis de nombreuses années.

Recently, two courts of appeal dismissed as moot under 11 U.S.C. § 363(m) appeals of orders   authorizing the sale of assets. The courts’ analysis focused on whether granting the appellant’s relief  from the lower courts’ order would affect the asset sale. Thus the trend in the appellate courts is that only appeals that will not affect the sale itself (such as a dispute over the distribution of sale proceeds) are not subject to being dismissed as moot.

Numerous bankruptcy trustees have attempted to claw back from colleges and universities — and even from private elementary and secondary schools — the tuition payments that parents made on behalf of their children, when the parents subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

In determining their preference liability exposure, creditors typically consider whether they have provided any subsequent “new value” to the debtor after they have received an alleged preferential payment. Debtors and trustees frequently take the position that creditors cannot use as a defense any new value that has been repaid to the creditor post-petition through critical vendor payments or pursuant to Section 503(b)(9) of the Bankruptcy Code. Bankruptcy courts have ruled differently on this issue.

Due to inconsistent decisions in the Second Circuit and Third Circuit, there has been some uncertainty as to whether a purchaser of a bankruptcy claim is subject to defenses that a debtor would have against the original creditor. Recently, this issue was settled with respect to cases filed in the Third Circuit.

On October 7, 2013, the United States Supreme Court refused to review a Seventh Circuit decision¹ in the Castleton Plaza, LP case, which held that a new value plan proposed by the debtor in which an equity-holder’s spouse would provide a cash infusion to the debtor in exchange for 100 percent of the reorganiz

Le 5 novembre 2013, la Commission européenne a rendu public son projet de lignes directrices relatives aux aides au sauvetage et à la restructuration des entreprises en difficulté et l’a soumis à une consultation publique qui prendra fin le 31 décembre 2013. Elles remplaceront début 2014 les lignes directrices actuelles, adoptées en 2004.

La proposition de la Commission est disponible sur le lien suivant.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently confirmed that a channeling injunction pursuant to 11 U.S.C.