Editor’s Note:  One of the many fascinating things about restructuring work is its willingness to evolve by borrowing from other areas of the law.  Just as business practices change, new financing techniques evolve, and transactions become more complex, the bankruptcy world must adapt as well, to allow for a well functioning insolvency system and not a stilted, out of date process.  To that end, we at The Bankruptcy Cave love finding curious decisions in tangential fields of the law, and thinking about how they may change bankruptcy practice, or how bankruptcy pract

We at The Bankruptcy Cave applaud the recent ruling by Judge Whipple of the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, seeking to make the post-confirmation parties, processes, and procedures far more transparent. In In re Affordable Med Scrubs, LLC,[1] Judge Whipple declined to approve a disclosure statement for a debtor’s liquidating plan.

We’ve all seen it. The business opportunity looks enticing but is laced with risk about a potential bankruptcy filing down the road. As bankruptcy lawyers we are often asked how deals can be structured to prevent a potential bankruptcy filing.

Editor’s Note: On June 16, 2016, The Bankruptcy Cave gave you our summary of the controversial Sabine decision. At that time, post-hearing motions were pending.

On March 9, 2016, Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman of the Southern District of New York issued her decision on the Debtor’s motion to reject certain contracts in Sabine Oil & Gas Corporation’s Chapter 11 case.^[i] The decision, which allowed Sabine to reject “gathering agreements”

A recent decision out of a New Jersey Bankruptcy Court highlights a loophole in the Bankruptcy Code which may allow Chapter 7 debtors to keep significant assets out of the hands of trustees and creditors.

Recent piece-meal amendments to the Spanish Insolvency Act 2003 seem to have cumulated into a restructuring solution that is starting to be considered predictable, quick and fair, especially when compared to the pre-amendment system. With its new restructuring approach, which shares many of the same characteristics as an English Scheme of Arrangement, Spanish companies have finally been given much-needed space and time to develop an appropriate restructuring strategy.

While the CIS nations have recently provided a multitude of sizeable restructuring cases, the region’s dominant force, Russia, has stood up reasonably well to lengthy economic decline, economic sanctions and the collapse of oil and gas prices. There are now signs however, that its complex troubles are pushing certain companies towards a restructuring or insolvency position.

In light of the UK’s cram down and director-friendly processes, in particular its scheme of arrangement model, major European economies such as France, Germany and Italy have worked hard to develop regimes that give greater emphasis to pre-insolvency alternatives. These new regimes create cram down mechanisms and encourage debtor-in-possession (DIP) financings, ultimately aiming to make restructuring plans more accessible, more efficient, and crucially more reliable; essentially more in tune with the Anglo-American approach to insolvency and restructuring.

Much like the English Scheme of Arrangement which has become a popular debt restructuring solution for international debtors, the English High Court is an attractive forum for insolvency litigation thanks to the potent combination of wide-ranging powers available to Insolvency Practitioners (IPs) under the Insolvency Act 1986, and the increasing availability of litigation funding arrangements in the London market.