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.
In the Schmid case the European Court of Justice ruled on the issue of jurisdiction of the Courts of a Member State ofthe EU where an insolvency procedure was commenced, whose receiver started a claw-back action against a defendantdomiciled in a non-Member State
The Case
The Tribunal of Milan with a decision of 12 June 2014 took a stand which is in sharp contrast with mainstreamcase-law, with respect to clauses – widely used as common practice in distressed assets deals as part of“concordato preventivo” restructurings based on an interim lease of business period while the insolvencyproceeding is pending – allowing the lessee to apply rental fee payments to the final purchase price of the business,once the “concordato” is confirmed and the sale can take place
With judgment No. 10105 of 9 May 2014, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that trusts can be recognized inItaly, when the settlor is insolvent, only if they are consistent with the purposes of the procedure.
The Case
With judgment No. 5945 of 11 March 2013, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation addressed a key issue under EC Regulation No. 1346/2000: the location of the “center of main interests” (COMI) of the company according to factors recognizable by third parties.
The Case
The Court of Milan with a decision on 28 May 2014 addressed some heavily debated legal issues: the Bankruptcy Courtmay authorize the debtor to terminate credit facility agreements when the debtor submitted a pre-filing for concordato preventivo (known as “concordato con riserva”)?
The Case
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