On Monday, November 17, 2014, the United States Supreme Court agreed to decide a critical issue for mortgage lenders and secondary market investors, whether Section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code allows a Chapter 7 debtor to “strip off” a junior mortgage lien when the outstanding senior debt exceeds the current value of the senior lien.  Bank of America, N.A. v. Caulkett, No. 13-1421, 2014 WL 2207208 (U.S. Nov. 17, 2014); Bank of America, N.A. v. Toledo-Cardona, No. 14-163, 2014 WL 3965212 (U.S. Nov. 17, 2014). 

Contexte

En février 2012, la fermeture des hauts fourneaux de Florange divise la classe politique. Le président François Hollande s’engage alors à ce que désormais tout société voulant mettre fin à son activité en France soit soumise à l’obligation de rechercher un repreneur.

Background

In February 2012, following the highly political closing of the Florange site, a steel production plant, President François Hollande vowed that going forward any company wanting to close down its operations in France would have an obligation to first look for a purchaser.

Given the unfortunate reputation of French courts for awarding substantial damages to employees for unfair terminations, US corporations with operations in France are anxious to limit their financial and legal exposure in case of litigation initiated by their French workforce.  How to achieve this efficiently is a far from rhetorical question as French employees frequently pull in the US parent company as a named defendant.  The recent decision of the French Supreme Court [Cass. Soc.

One of the more effective risk-mitigation legal tools used by  senior real estate lenders is the single purpose entity borrower.  Among other things, having a single purpose, bankruptcy  remote borrower makes avoiding the risks of bankruptcy easier.  Even in bankruptcy, if the borrower is truly single purpose, and it  keeps the universe of creditors small, the senior secured lender  will have an easier time defeating any plan of reorganization  proposed by the borrower because it will control all of the  legitimate classes of creditors by virtue of th

The British Columbia Court of Appeal recently released a helpful decision applying principles of discoverability to determine when a limitation period begins to run. In Roberts v. E.

Pan Canadian Mortgage Group v. 679972 B.C. Ltd., 2013 BCSC 1078 (Pan Canadian), addresses the nature and priority of a purchaser’s lien, which, in general terms, is a financial charge that results when a purchaser pays a deposit toward the purchase price under a contract of purchase and sale.

In recent years, bankruptcy courts have come closer to reaching a consensus regarding their ability to recharacterize debt into equity. Yet, beneath this consensus lies a deepening divide that lenders should be aware of. Recharacterization challenges “the assertion of a debt against the bankruptcy estate on the ground that the ‘loaned’ capital was actually an equity investment.” In re Insilco Techs., Inc., 480 F.3d 212, 217 (3d Cir. 2007) (internal citations omitted).

In Ontario (Training, Colleges and Universities) v.

The recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in msi Spergel Inc. v. I.F. Propco Holdings (Ontario) 36 Ltd., 2013 ONCA 550 (“msi Spergel”) confirms that the Court will not suspend, extend or otherwise vary the general two-year limitation period under the Limitations Act, 2002 (the “Limitations Act”) unless there is express statutory authority to do so.