On 7 July 2022, the UK Government published a consultation on changing UK law to implement two model laws in the field of insolvency that have been adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). These are:

On average, the Supreme Court hears a single bankruptcy case each term. But during the October 2022 term, the Supreme Court issued a remarkable four decisions in bankruptcy cases. These decisions, which are summarized below, address appellate issues relating to sale orders, the discharge of claims obtained by fraud, and sovereign immunity issues in two different contexts.

I. Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is not a jurisdictional provision that precludes appellate review of asset sale orders.

The Court of Appeal in Hunt v Ubhi has confirmed that insolvency practitioners seeking freezing orders are subject to the default requirement of providing an unlimited cross-undertaking in damages.

Hundreds and hundreds of claims for personal injury and property damage associated with PFAS contamination have been accumulating in the courtroom of a Federal Judge in South Carolina. A little over four years ago the Federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation determined that Federal claims that Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) containing PFAS used to fight fires had contaminated drinking water had enough in common that they should all be sent to Federal Judge Gergel in South Carolina for disposition.

This article provides information regarding what will now happen to the operations and business of the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB UK) after the sale (the Sale) of SVB UK to HSBC’s ring-fenced UK subsidiary, HSBC UK Bank plc (HSBC).

The Bank of England (the BoE) will apply to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB UK) into Bank Insolvency, which is a modified version of liquidation under Part 2 of the Banking Act 2009, on Sunday 12 March 2023 unless a buyer can be found for SVB UK’s business and assets.

The situation remains fluid and this represents our advice based on public announcements by the BoE and SVB UK that we are aware of as at 12pm on 12 March 2023.

With an increased number of businesses experiencing financial difficulties given rising inflation, the weaker pound and interest rate increases, debt restructurings are becoming, and are expected to continue to become, more common.

Such restructurings are often achieved by a third-party lender releasing or materially amending all or part of its debt, which would result in taxable income arising to a UK corporate borrower unless a relevant exemption applies.

A bankruptcy court’s recent denial of a debtor’s petition for bankruptcy relief on narrow grounds casts a long shadow on the viability of bankruptcy relief for those employed in the cannabis industry. Though confining the court’s holding to this debtor’s case, the court concluded that because the debtor engaged, and intended to continue engaging, in activities that violate the Federal Controlled Substances Act, the debtor could not objectively have filed for bankruptcy or proposed a plan of reorganization in good faith, as required by Federal bankruptcy law.

The latest amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (the “Bankruptcy Rules”) took effect on December 1, 2022. This collection of modifications may be broadly divided into two categories: (i) amendments and a new rule promulgated to account for the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (the “SBRA”), and (ii) amendments clarifying or consolidating non-SBRA specific Bankruptcy Rules.

SBRA-Related Amendments

Could bankruptcy protection be on the horizon for individuals and companies actively involved in the cannabis industry? Potentially yes, following President Biden’s October 6, 2022 request for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to begin the administrative process to review marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substance Act (“CSA”).