On March 5, 2018, the Federal Maritime Commission voted to launch an investigation into the detention, demurrage, and per diem charges of vessel operating common carriers and marine terminal operators. The investigation will be headed by Commissioner Rebecca Dye, who will have broad authority to issue subpoenas, hold public and non-public inquiries, and require reports.

The key issues Commissioner Dye will investigate are:

At just before 7.00am on Monday 15 January 2018 following an urgent telephone hearing, a High Court Judge agreed to place six of the Carillion Group companies into compulsory liquidation and appoint the Official Receiver as Liquidator. At the same time, six partners of PwC were appointed as Special Managers to assist the Liquidators.

SNDA Basics

A subordination, nondisturbance and attornment agreement (“SNDA”) is commonly used in real estate financing to clarify the rights and obligations between the owner of rental property (i.e., the borrower), the lender that provides financing secured by the property, and the tenant under a lease of the property in the event the lender forecloses or otherwise acquires title to the property. As suggested by its name, an SNDA has the following three primary components:

When you are focused on the day-to-day running of a business, it can be all too easy to miss the warning signs that you may be at risk of insolvency. Often, the signs might be interpreted as a “blip” or a “minor issue” paired with the assumption that the company can trade out of it. In this article, Stephen Young identifies some of the key warning signs that directors should be aware of.

A set of new insolvency rules are coming into force, as of April 6 2017, as Stephen Young explains in the following bulletin. In short, the previous insolvency rules that have been in force since 1986 no longer apply and instead a whole new set of rules now must be used.

The new Insolvency (England & Wales) 2016 rules will apply to all cases, both existing and new.

In short, the main changes are as follows:

1. All of the Parts and Numbering of the old rules have been completely changed so each type of insolvency has its own new Part.

The United States Supreme Court (the “Court”) recently issued a long-awaited decision in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. (“Jevic”), which limits the use of “structured dismissals” in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, requiring structured dismissals pursuant to which final distributions are made to comply with the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme, or the consent of all affected parties to be obtained.1

What is a Structured Dismissal?

The Court of Appeal has recently overturned the commonly held belief that a validation order would normally be made if the disposition made by a company subject to a winding up petition was done so in good faith and in the ordinary course of business at a time when the parties were unaware of the existence of the petition.

1. The starting point

Section 127 Insolvency Act 1986 provides:

RBS announced last month that SME customers will automatically be entitled to a refund of the fees that they were charged whilst being managed by the Bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) between 2008 and 2013 following a review by the FCA.

This offer follows on from the payments RBS has made in recent years for the mis-selling of PPI and interest rate swap products which has resulted in £1.8 billion of redress costs.

This article examines possible consequences for SMEs that were in GRG during the relevant period which now are, or have been, in an insolvency procedure.

The new Companies Ordinance (Cap 622) enacted in 2012 was the first part of the effort to rewrite the statutory provisions relating to the incorporation and operation of companies. The remaining task of updating the winding up and insolvency provisions was completed in May 2016, when amendments to the Companies (Winding Up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (Cap 32) (CWUMPO) were passed into law. Although the implementation date of these amendments are to be announced by the government, it is time to look at the significant changes ahead.

The proposed bankruptcy sale of Golfsmith International Holdings to Dick’s Sporting Goods was recently approved, after the privacy ombudsman recommended that almost 10,000,000 consumer records (i.e., the personal information of consumers) of Golfsmith International Holdings can be transferred to Dick’s Sporting Goods.