In a matter of first impression, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York recently held that former employees of a subcontractor of Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (“Hawker”)—a company that emerged from bankruptcy in 2013 and was purchased by Textron Inc.

Overview

A recent decision from the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas concludes that directors of a non-debtor general partner may owe fiduciary duties to a limited partnership debtor in bankruptcy whether or not such duties exist (or have been disclaimed) under the debtor's and general partner's organizational documents or applicable state law.[1]  In deciding whether to dismiss an involuntary petition filed against Houston Regional Sports Network, L.P.

In the recent decision of Kenneth Krys and Joanna Lau (as Joint Liquidators of Fairfield Sentry Limited in Liquidation) and Stichting Shell Pension Funds, HCVAP 2011/036, the ECSC Court of Appeal provided some clarification of its decision in Westford Special Situations Fund Limited v Barfield Nominees Limited et al HCVAP No. 14 of 2010.

This article sets out the potential impact in the BVI and Cayman of the much anticipated Supreme Court decision in Rubin v. Eurofinance SA [2012] UKSC 46, which was handed down on 24 October 2012. Rubin deals with the issue of whether orders made in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the United States can be enforced as judgments of the English Courts.

COMPETING SETS OF RULES AND PRINCIPLES

Important clarification was provided today to the insolvency world as the UK Supreme Court in the conjoined appeals in Rubin and New Cap rejected the modified universalist doctrine that established common law rules as to the enforcement of foreign judgments do not (or should not) apply to insolvency orders.

On August 2, 2012, in the case ofIn re MBS Management Services, Inc.,¹ the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a retail electricity agreement with a real estate management company constituted a forward contract protected by the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (“Bankruptcy Code”).

In a decision further defining when US public policy restricts the relief a court may grant in aid of a foreign restructuring or insolvency proceeding, the Bankruptcy Court in the Chapter 15 case of Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V. v. ACP Master, Ltd. (In re Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V.), Ch. 15 Case No. 11-33335-HDH-15, 2012 WL 2138112 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. Jun. 13, 2012) refused to a enforce a Mexican restructuring plan that novated and extinguished the guaranty obligations of the Mexican debtor’s non-debtor subsidiary guarantors.

Whether a secured creditor has an absolute right to credit bid at a sale under a chapter 11 plan has been the subject of conflicting decisions rendered by the Third, Fifth and Seventh Circuits.¹ The United States Supreme Court has resolved these inconsistent rulings with its decision in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC, et al., v. Amalgamated Bank, ² which affirmed the Seventh Circuit’s holding that a secured creditor has an absolute right to credit bid in a sale under a chapter 11 plan.

Section 541(a) of the Bankruptcy Code creates a worldwide estate comprising all of the legal or equitable interests of the debtor, “wherever located,” held by the debtor as of the filing date.¹ The Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay, in turn, applies “to all entities” and protects the debtor’s property and the bankruptcy court’s jurisdiction by barring “any act to obtain possession of property of the estate . . .