Frost & Sullivan has recently predicted that 4% of all sales (the equivalent of 4.5million units) of new cars will be online purchases by 2020. This compares to 5,000 new cars sold solely online in 2011. An implication of this, should they wish to avoid a similar fate to the likes of HMV, Jessops and Blockbuster, is that car retailers are going to have to make adjustments to their selling processes in order to avoid showrooms becoming mere browsing opportunities for customers to pick and chose but purchase online.
On November 27, 2012, Judge Shelley C. Chapman of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion in In re Patriot Coal Corporation1 transferring the chapter 11 proceedings pending before her to the Eastern District of Missouri.
Introduction
Recent bankruptcy appellate rulings have addressed the issue of what rights a trademark licensee has after a debtor-licensor rejects its trademark license in bankruptcy.
In light of the current uncertainty surrounding the rights of trademark licensees when a debtor-licensor seeks to reject the underlying license agreements in bankruptcy, licensees may wish to consider strategies to protect their rights.
In re Exide Technologies5
In 1991, Exide Technologies sold substantially all of its industrial battery business to EnerSys Delaware, Inc. (then known as Yuasa Battery (America), Inc.).
Sunbeam Products, Inc. v. Chicago American Manufacturing, LLC20 In the Sunbeam Products case, the Seventh Circuit held that a trademark licensee could continue to use a trademark after the license was rejected by the debtorlicensor, even though the protections of section 365(n) of the Bankruptcy Code do not extend to licensees of trademarks.
The German Insolvency Code requires the management of German limited liability companies (GmbH), stock corporations (AG) and other entities without personal liability to file for the commencement of insolvency proceedings no later than three weeks after the entity has become illiquid (zahlungsunfähig) or overindebted (überschuldet).
New insolvency proceedings called “accelerated financial safeguard” (sauvegarde financière accélérée) were introduced into French law two years ago1.
You are about to enter a new dimension. A world not only of law and of the Insolvency Act 1986, but of equity. You are about to enter… The Twilight Trust Zone!
Cash-flow is the life blood of a company. As a company fails the flow of this vital sustenance grows weaker. The heart stutters and fails. The company is dying. Worse, it is unable to meet its liabilities as they fall due, and so fails one of the statutory tests of insolvency.