Fulltext Search

Just after the Bankruptcy Court held that Detroit is indeed eligible for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr reiterated that he expects the Detroit Institute of Arts to contribute financially to the city’s plan to emerge from insolvency.  Said Orr, “We’d like to find a way to monetize the DIA.” 

When the final version of the Omnibus II Directive comes into force, it will amend the Solvency II Directive so that it includes a sunrise clause, a phasing-in clause, and a run-off and restructuring exemption, as well as significant reporting and other transitional measures. It will also allow or require the European Commission and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) to adopt “regulatory technical standards”,“implementing technical standards” and “comply or explain Guidelines”.

The English Court has devised a new route to impose liability on a company's UBO who strips assets from the company leaving creditors to claim in its insolvency. UBOs feeling comfortable about the security of their corporate veil after the Supreme Court’s decision in Prest[1], will need to look carefully at this recent decision, which may be applied in other jurisdictions with corporate laws based on English law, such as BVI and Cyprus.

Trial begins today in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit over whether the city of Detroit is even eligible for the Chapter 9 bankrupcty protection it sought earlier this year.  The major point of contention is whether Detroit may, under the Michigan constitution, seek bankrupcty in a way that would reduce pension payments (as it would reduce payment to all its creditors).

As the controversy around the possible sale of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collectioncontinues to swirl, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has given some of his most pointed comments to date about his expectations.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) recently followed the emerging trend of affording the safe harbor protections of section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”) to intermediary financial institutions acting as only conduits in otherwise voidable transactions.

An important qualifier to the discussion about deaccessioning and the Detroit Institute of Arts is that although DIA is a subdivision of the bankruptcy debtor (Detroit), that debtor is not any old commercial entity.  Rather, Detroit is a municipality, and municipal and state debtors are governed by slightly different rules than private parties.