The Court of Appeal has set aside a freezing order obtained by a provisional liquidator within winding up proceedings, on the basis that the cross-undertaking in damages given by him was inadequate because it was limited to the amount recovered for the estate. The liquidator had not discharged the burden of showing good reason to depart from the “default position” that a cross-undertaking should be unlimited in amount: Hunt v Ubhi [2023] EWCA Civ 417.

Directors and officers should take note of a recent decision from the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York concerning access to D&O insurance policy proceeds. In In re SVB Financial Group, Case No. 23-10367 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.

In a highly anticipated decision issued on May 30, 2023, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rendered its opinion in Purdue Pharma LP v. City of Grand Prairie (In re Purdue Pharma LP)¹ approving a Chapter 11 plan’s inclusion of a nonconsensual release of creditors’ direct claims against non-debtor third parties.

This client alert describes the history of the case, identifies some of the key takeaways from the decision and outlines where other jurisdictions in the country stand on nonconsensual third-party releases.

In Simplicity & Vogue Retailing (HK) Co., Limited [2023] HKCFI 1443, the Hong Kong Companies Court (the “Court“) made a winding up order against the Company on the basis that it failed to pay security in time. In considering the Company’s opposition grounds, the Court commented that it retains discretion to wind up a company in cases involving an arbitration clause.

In an anticipated decision, on May 30, 2023, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision approving a Chapter 11 plan’s inclusion of a nonconsensual release of direct claims against non-debtor third parties. Purdue Pharma LP v. City of Grand Prairie (In re Purdue Pharma LP), No. 22-110 (2d Cir. May 30, 2023).

The High Court has held that certain assets sold by a company around the time of its administration were subject to a fixed charge rather than a floating charge and as such, the sale proceeds were not to be distributed to preferential creditors or unsecured creditors: Avanti Communications Ltd, Re [2023] EWHC 940 (Ch).

On May 2, 2023, the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana reversed a bankruptcy court’s ruling that read limitations into the application of Bankruptcy Code Section 546(e)’s safe harbor to a stock purchase transaction. Specifically, the District Court relied on the plain language of Section 546 in determining that a chapter 7 trustee could not avoid the transfer of $24.9 million by the debtor to repay a bridge loan in connection with a financed acquisition of the debtor’s stock two years prior to its bankruptcy filing.

Two recent judgments from different Australian courts have considered circumstances in which insolvency disputes can (or cannot) be arbitrated in accordance with pre-existing arbitration agreements. In particular, the decisions address the following two key issues:

• when certain insolvency claims can be arbitrated; and
• when a third party can participate in arbitral proceedings either claiming or defending ‘through or under’ a party to the arbitration agreement.

Key takeaways

On 21 April 2023, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal (CA) released its judgment Power Securities Co Ltd v Sin Kwok Lam [2023] HKCA 594, which provided certainty on the application of the bar against reflective loss for shareholders.

Background

On April 17, 2023, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion holding that a senior lender who uses economic leverage and exercises its statutory and contractual rights upon a borrower’s default, including the right to credit bid as part of a bankruptcy sale process—despite adverse impact on a junior lender—remains a “good faith” purchaser entitled to the protections under Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code.