In light of the modern trend towards “pre-pack” arrangements as a legitimate restructuring solution, a recent judgment handed down in the Federal Court provides a timely reminder for insolvency practitioners that independence is paramount and liquidators can be removed upon the application of a creditor in circumstances where there is a perception of conflict.

On April 16, 2012, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Nassau County, entered an Order of Liquidation and Approval of the ELNY Restructuring Agreement (Order) and accompanying memorandum decision. The Order was entered over the objections of a number of ELNY payees, and followed an 11 day hearing that took place in March 2012.

Many experienced business people are now familiar with the process by which their valid and successful debt collection efforts result in liability under the preference provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.

New amendments to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2019 were recently adopted in an attempt to clarify requirements surrounding file 2019 statements in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.

Prior to the amendments, which were adopted Dec. 1, 2011, Rule 2019 was often applied in an inconsistent haphazard manner resulting in a great deal of uncertainty regarding who was required to file the statement and under what circumstances that statement was required to be filed.  

The Original Rule 2019

If you are a creditor of a Delaware limited liability company and wish to pursue derivative claims on behalf of an insolvent company against the company’s present or former managers based on breaches of fiduciary duties, you may be out of luck. The Delaware Supreme Court recently decided in CML V LLC v. Bax, 2011 Del. LEXIS 480 (Sept. 2, 2011), that creditors’ rights against limited liability companies differ from those against corporations.

In recent years, several foreign companies have used the English law scheme of arrangement as a flexible restructuring method to compromise creditor claims.  The decision of the High Court in the latest of these cases, that of the German company Rodenstock GmbH, clarifies that an English court will accept jurisdiction where the only connection to England is that the company’s finance documents were governed by English law.

One of the many issues which arose from the collapse of Lehman Brothers was whether “flip provisions”, which reverse a swap counterparty’s priority in the order of payment on insolvency, were invalid on the basis that they contravened the anti-deprivation principle.  This is a long-established common law principle which seeks to prevent an insolvent party from arranging its affairs to frustrate the legitimate claims of creditors.

On 5 October 2011 Justice Barrett of the Supreme Court of NSW handed down a decision in Centro Retail Limited and Centro MCS Manager Limited in its capacity as Responsible Entity of the Centro Retail Trust [2011] NSWSC 1175 (“Centro”) where he found that the responsible entity of Centro Retail Trust would be justified in modifying the constitution of the trust without unitholder approval to a insert a provision permitting the issue of units at a price different to that provided for by the pre-existing provisions.

We write to provide an important update concerning Executive Life Insurance Company of New York (“ELNY”).

Recently secured parties, including some indenture trustees, have found the priority, scope, validity and enforceability of seemingly properly perfected security interests in Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) licenses, authorizations and permits, and any proceeds or value derived therefrom, challenged by creditors in bankruptcy proceedings.