The English High Court in Fondazione Enasarco v Lehman Brothers Finance S.A. and Anthracite Rated Investments (Cayman) Limited [2015] EWHC 1307 (Ch) applied a common sense approach in the circumstances to the determination of Loss under the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement. The judgment of the judge (Mr Justice David Richards) is useful reading for those involved in structured products and derivatives.

Background

An opinion from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in In re Motors Liquidation Company, relying on the Delaware Supreme Court’s answer to a certified question highlight the need to focus on the details w

Effective March 23, 2015, the Ohio Revised Code will contain robust provisions for the court appointment of a receiver, which will expand the statutory grounds for such appointments and expressly authorize enumerated powers for receivers designed to facilitate the receiver’s ability to liquidate assets. In many respects the revised statute codifies a number of existing practices.

It long has been the law that unpaid creditors of an insolvent debtor can complain if the debtor sells or otherwise transfers any of its assets for less than their fair value. Assume, for example, a company in financial distress sells one of its manufacturing plants to an unrelated purchaser for $15 million. If an unpaid creditor of the seller can demonstrate the fair value of the facility at the time of the sale was $20 million, the purchaser may be required to account to the seller, or its creditors, for the $5 million difference.

The Portland Press Herald reports that the bankruptcy trustee for Great Northern Paper has said there is sufficient evidence to pursue claims against the Company’s owners, officers and directors for breach of their fiduciary duties and breach of the duty of loyalty arising from the structuring and execution of a Maine new markets tax credit transaction.

For the past 15 years, trust preferred securities (TruPS) have constituted a significant percentage of the capital of many financial institutions, mostly bank holding companies.Their ubiquity, both as a source of capital and as a common investment for banks, made them a quiet constant for many financial institutions. Even in the chaos of the Great Recession, standard TruPS terms allowed for the deferral of interest payments for up to five years, easing institutions’ cash-flow burdens during those volatile times.

The lead-participant relationship arising from a loan participation has become a fairly contentious one over the last two years as the interests of the two have diverged. For example, loan participants that may be in a troubled condition are never terribly anxious to hear that the lead bank has obtained a current appraisal of the primary collateral. Likewise, a strong loan participant my push a weak lead bank to take more decisive action regarding collecting the loan and possibly foreclosing on the collateral.

On August 29, 2014, Judge John T.

In a major victory for secured creditors, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Tennessee has held that a sale of secured property must afford a secured creditor the right to credit bid for its collateral under section 363(k) of title 11 of the United States Code (Bankruptcy Code), except in extraordinary circumstances upon a showing of “cause.” The court held that even where secured party credit bidding might impact the competitive bidding process – including potentially “chilling” third party bids – this alone does not constitute sufficient cause to deny a credito

On Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals put a nail in the coffin of the attempt by Thelen LLP’s bankruptcy trustee to claw back fees on work that the firm’s former partners took with them to their new firm, Seyfarth Shaw LLP.  Here’s the opinion.