On October 29, 2009, the California Court of Appeal, Sixth District, in Berg & Berg Enterprises, LLC v. Boyle, et al., unequivocally ruled that, under California law, directors of either an insolvent corporation or a corporation in the more elusively defined “zone of insolvency” do not owe a fiduciary duty of care or loyalty to creditors. In so ruling, California joins Delaware in clarifying directors’ duties when the corporation is insolvent or in the zone of insolvency.

Background

On September 23 2009 the Amsterdam District Court granted the holder of a pledge over the shares in the capital of Schoeller Arca Systems Services BV authorization for foreclosure on the pledge by way of a private sale. Foreclosure on a pledge over Dutch shares is rare. The decision introduces the possibility for a secured lender either to wipe out subordinated mezzanine debt or to implement a loan-to-own strategy.

Facts

In 2007 Schoeller Arca Systems, its parent and subsidiaries (known as the SAS Group) entered into:

The Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that secured creditors do not have a right to credit bid their claim when the sale of a debtor’s assets is conducted under a plan of reorganization.

The bankruptcy court's opinion exemplifies the second guessing that can confront solvency opinion providers and highlights issues that providers should carefully vet with experienced legal counsel.

Introduction

Structured finance transactions frequently subordinate a swap counterparty’s rights to termination payments upon termination of a swap by reason of counterparty default. Such a provision has recently been upheld by an English court. As the case concerns the insolvency of Lehman Brothers however, the US courts must also make a decision on the same provision.  

Belgium has modified its law on business reorganizations that involve distressed companies. The new law of January 31, 2009, on the continuity of companies came into force on April 1, 2009, replacing an unpopular and rigid law on judicial composition proceedings that dated to 1997.

This new law simplifies the rules and procedures for reorganizing distressed companies by providing a variety of new flexible out-of-court and in-court options designed to facilitate business recovery.

A pre-packaged business sale (or “pre-pack”) is an arrangement under which the sale of a company’s business or assets is agreed in principle with a buyer prior to the appointment of an insolvency practitioner (most commonly an administrator), who then executes the sale shortly after his or her appointment.

As discussed in our previous update, the Business Continuity Act of 31 January 2009 (the “Act”) provides for various options to facilitate business recovery. One such option is the court-supervised sale of (all or part of) the debtor’s business.

The introduction of the court-supervised sale is an important development. Such sales are likely to become a popular option under the Act for two reasons.

Italian Decree 134/2008, which suspended competition law for crisis buyouts, thereby allowing the merger of Alitalia and Air One, has been called into question following a claim of unconstitutionality brought by consumer association Federconsumatori, Italian airline Meridiana, its subsidiary Eurofly and the province of Milan. The question of whether the Decree potentially violates Article 3 on equal treatment and Article 41 on freedom of economic activity has now been referred to the Italian Constitutional Court.