Voyager Digital Assets Inc., along with two of its affiliates, filed bankruptcy petitions in the Southern District of New York on July 5, 2022. The filing is significant—it followed months of an extreme downturn in the cryptocurrency sector which led to the collapse of Three Arrows Capital, a Singaporean cryptocurrency hedge fund (that borrowed $350 million and 15,250 Bitcoins from Voyager).
In a consultation commenced on 7 July 2022, the UK Insolvency Service is proposing to implement two “model laws” adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
Japan Inc has embarked upon the overdue process of unbundling its conglomerate structures. Businesses that are being put up for sale include distressed oversees operations, particularly in the automotive sector. Managing the businesses while they are in distress, preparing them for sale, and eventually selling them, comes with a variety of legal and practical complications. The legal landscape will vary by jurisdiction, but the following aspects generally need to be considered in some shape or form regardless of the applicable law.
Cryptoassets continue to be in the spotlight with prices no longer heading ‘to the moon’, the recent high-profile failure of an algorithmic stablecoin and the difficulties experienced by various service providers. This all forms the backdrop to the UK Government’s publication of proposals with respect to managing the failure of systemic digital settlement asset firms.
Overview
On 18 March 2021, the UK Government published its white paper on restoring trust in audit and corporate governance. On 31 May 2022, the Government published its response to the consultation.
The High Court (Mr Justice Trower) today gave its judgment sanctioning Amigo’s ‘New Business Scheme’. A team of us at Freshfields were pleased to help Amigo with this. Here we outline the technical innovations that, despite significant legal and regulatory uncertainty, delivered the best available outcome for Amigo’s redress creditors and the prospect of Amigo lending again for the benefit of those creditors and future customers. We also identify two approaches that addressed the practical challenge of implementing a complex legal process with retail creditors.
At the COP26 climate summit in November 2021, over forty countries committed to phase out use of coal-fired power.
On 30 March 2022, the English court sanctioned the most recent restructuring plan proposed by Smile Telecoms Holdings Limited (Smile).
Pandemic related restrictions on winding up companies come to an end.
The High Court has sanctioned the Part 26A restructuring plan of E D & F Man Holdings Limited (the Plan) on which Freshfields has advised the E D & F Man Group (the Group). The Plan represents the first full-scale financial restructuring to utilise cross-class cram-down in respect of a financial creditor class and to amend articles of association. This scenario represents the paradigm use case practitioners and commentators envisaged when Part 26A was introduced in 2020.