The Illinois legislature has passed and sent to the Governor an amendment to the Illinois Conveyances Act to address the decision in Crane v. The Gifford State Bank (2012 WL 669595 (Bkrtcy.C.D. Il). The Crane decision was rendered on February 29, 2012, and held that a mortgage could be avoided by a trustee in bankruptcy because it failed to include the interest rate and maturity date of the indebtedness secured by the mortgage.

Ministerial Decisions  

Ministry of Manpower

Decision No. 611/2012  

Dissolves the trade union of the employees of Sojex Oman due to its failure to appoint sufficient members for the General Assembly.

Promulgated on 10 November 2012         Effective on promulgation  

Ministry of Manpower  

Decision No. 612/2012

Dissolves the trade union of the employees of Gulf Air due to its liquidation.  

In its recent decision in Valley Bank and Trust Company v. Spectrum Scan, LLC (In re Tracy Broadcasting Corp.), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit overturned lower court decisions that were casting serious doubt on a lender’s ability to realize value from its security interest in the proceeds of FCC broadcast licenses.  This alert will briefly describe the law governing security interests in FCC broadcast licenses, as well as the issues created by the lower courts – and ultimately resolved by the appeals court - in the Tracy case.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in the case of In Re: McCormick that a recorded North Carolina deed of trust indexed in a county’s grantor/grantee index may nevertheless be avoided by a trustee in bankruptcy if such county has elected a Parcel Identification Number (“PIN”) indexing system and the recorded deed of trust does not appear in such PIN index.  This alert briefly describes the PIN system in North Carolina and the McCormick decision’s impact on the need for PINs in deeds of trust recorded in North Carolina counties that have adopted the PIN

Several industry associations (ISDA, BBA and FOA – the futures and options association) have responded to a Treasury informal consultation on the need to carve out from English insolvency law the porting of clearing clients’ positions and margin. They agree on the need to ensure certainty around the porting option when a clearing member becomes insolvent. EMIR’s porting option should also apply where the clearing member is acting through back-to-back transactions and holds the client’s margin. The associations note that porting should be subject to agreement.

FSA has launched a consultation and discussion paper on proposals to bring the Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS) in line with EMIR. More generally, it wants to make CASS client money pooling provisions more flexible and address the problems identified during the Lehman and MF Global insolvencies.

The proposals cover the following:

This summer has seen several pension issues making the news. They show how essential it is for employers and trustees to keep abreast of how developments impact on their arrangements.

Jay Doraisamy looks at five areas which have made the headlines this summer:

Sultani Decrees  

Sultani Decree No. 44/2012

Ratifies an Annex to the Agreement on the Avoidance of Double Taxation between the Government of the Sultanate of Oman and the Government of the Republic of France.  

Promulgated on 27 August 2012           Effective on promulgation.

Sultani Decree No. 45/2012

BBA has published a briefing paper setting out its position on the Commission’s proposal for a bank recovery and resolution directive. It suggests that certain powers, such as appointing a Special Manager or requiring a plan for debt restructuring, are more akin to resolution tools and should not be used until the firm has reached its point of non-viability. This also applies to the bail-in tool, which cannot be used as the first or default option.

Sultani Decrees  

Sultani Decree No. 43/2012

Amends some of the provisions of the Municipal Councils Law promulgated by SD 116/2011.  

Promulgated on 8 August 2012          Effective on promulgation.

Ministerial Decisions and Financial Publications  

Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries

Decision No. 177/2012