The Supreme Court’s Decision:

Either from our prior posts here and here, or from the great posts from Stone and Baxter’s Plan Propon

Background

On 26 April 2016, the Italian Government has introduced a new reform to shorten the length of the recovery of credit, by approving the decree law no. 59 (the Decree), entered into force on 3 May 2016. The Decree  aims  at  fostering  and facilitating  the  recovery  of  credit throughout enforcement  and insolvency  proceedings.

The main innovations concern:

In some good news for commercial vendors, the Supreme Court of Texas recently ruled that payments for ordinary services provided to an insolvent customer are not recoverable as fraudulent transfers, even if the customer turns out to be a “Ponzi scheme” instead of a legitimate business.

Preference actions are, for the most part, insanity. We won’t go on a tirade here. But recently, a ruling brings common sense to the “new value” defense.

There are many tenants that are, shall we say, “problem children.” They pay late, open late, breach, junk up your strip or building, threaten, the works. Sometimes, the landlord finds it easier just to reach a lease termination agreement with such a tenant, with the parties walking away with a mutual release. If the lease is below market, or the landlord is really motivated to move this tenant along, the landlord even provides some “keys money” to terminate the lease.

The guiding forces for a review of EC Regulation No. 1346/2000

The downturn in the economy, which in recent years has severely affected businesses at all levels within the European Union, has pushed many countries to review their internal legal systems on insolvency and restructuring proceedings. Indeed, the demand for adequate rules increases in times of crisis, prompting reforms where existing legislation is incomplete or unable to offer legal instruments capable of responding to changing economic conditions.

The European Court of Justice contradicts the Italian Court of Cassation and Constitutional Court andrules that a partial payment of VAT is possible, provided that an independent expert certifies that there isno better alternative for the Tax Authorities

The case

The Court of Cassation (19 February 2016, No. 3324) ruled that unauthorized payment of pre-­‐petitionclaims mandate a stop of the concordato procedure according to Art. 173 of the Italian Bankruptcy Lawonly if a prejudice follows for the creditors

The case

The Court of Forlì (3 February 2016) allowed a competitive bid process to select the purchaser of abusiness unit during the phase following a concordato “pre-­‐filing”

The case