With the possibility of a no-deal Brexit looming large, the implications for Irish insolvency practitioners is something we will all have to consider. The insolvency landscape will most likely look very different when we all return to the office after Christmas. This is a discussion on some of the possible implications for Irish and UK insolvency practitioners post-Brexit.
Current Regime
Failures rates in franchising are typically much lower than non-franchised start-ups. However, the latest British Franchise Association/NatWest survey of the UK franchising sector cites franchisee underperformance as one of the three key concerns of franchisors, and franchise businesses are of course not immune from the economic headwinds and technological changes which are affecting various sectors.
In Coosemans Miami v. Arthur (In re Arthur), the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida held last week that individuals in control of a PACA trust may still receive a bankruptcy discharge of debts arising from their breach of such PACA trust. A link to the opinion is here.
The Fifth Circuit recently issued an opinion that federal bankruptcy law does not prohibit a bona fide shareholder from exercising its right to vote against a bankruptcy filing notwithstanding that such shareholder was also an unsecured creditor. This represents the latest successful attempt to preclude bankruptcy through golden shares or bankruptcy blocking provisions in corporate authority documents.
On June 14, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a revised opinion that held that Federal law does not prevent a bona fide shareholder from exercising its right to vote against a bankruptcy petition just because it is also an unsecured creditor. In re Franchise Servs. of N. Am., Inc., 891 F.3d 198, 203 (5th Cir. 2018), as revised (June 14, 2018).
Weird things happen in bankruptcy court. All you high-falutin Chapter 11 jokers out there, cruise down to the bankruptcy motions calendar one day.
Bankruptcy courts have authority to hold in civil contempt one who refuses to comply with a bankruptcy court order, including incarceration and/or daily fines until the offender complies.[1] But when does civil contempt[2] cross into criminal contempt, which is punitive and outside
The recent decision from the United States Supreme Court in Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling (“Lamar”), further restricts a creditor’s ability to pursue future recovery on its debt through a nondischargeability action in a debtor’s bankruptcy. On June 4, 2018, the Court ruled in Lamar that a debtor’s false statement about a single asset must be in writing before the creditor’s debt can be excepted as nondischargeable in bankruptcy.