On April 29, 2014, power giant Energy Future Holding Corp. (“Energy Future”), along with 70 subsidiaries, filed for chapter 11 protection in the District of Delaware as part of a deal it has reached through lengthy negotiations with some of its largest senior creditors to restructure roughly $50 billion in debt.

Introduction

Fixed and floating charges – why are they important?

They give a lender a higher position in the queue for the net proceeds of a borrower’s assets in the event of a borrower’s insolvency.

This blog refers to Bettina Goletz’s blog on “Limits on non-compete and non-solicitation clauses under German law”. We have recently been asked whether the employee is entitled to compensation payments under a post-contractual non-compete clause in the situation where the employing company files for insolvency.

Introduction

When the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (Model Law) was introduced into Australian law in 2008, Australian admiralty practitioners expressed concern that the legislation which enacted the Model Law into Australian law did not take into account its potential impact on the right to arrest a ship in Australia.  The concern was that the Model Law would prevent parties from arresting ships in Australia, if the shipowner or charterer was the subject of foreign insolvency proceedings.  

After filing for US bankruptcy protection in Texas based on aJapanese bankruptcy, the Judge ordered that Mt.

On March 19, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided Grede v. FCStone, LLC, Nos. 13-1232, 13-1278 (7th Cir. Mar. 19, 2014), an opinion that reinforces the importance of the portability of investment accounts carrying commodity customer funds. The Seventh Circuit held that commodity futures customer funds must be protected in an insolvency situation, and that the release of customer funds to meet margin obligations should be upheld at all costs.

The debtor in Law listed his house on his bankruptcy schedules, claiming a homestead exemption in the amount of $75,000 under Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.730(a)(1). The debtor represented that the house was encumbered by two liens: a note and deed of trust for $147,156.52 in favor of Washington Mutual Bank, and a second note and deed of trust for $156,929.04 in favor of “Lin’s Mortgage & Associates.” Based on these representations, the debtor made it appear as if there was no nonexempt value in the house that the trustee could realize for the benefit of the estate.

Mt. Gox shut down and a lawsuit was filed that alleges Mt. Gox and Mark Karpeles’ “catastrophic loss …uncovered a massive scheme to defraud millions of consumers into providing a private company with real, paper money in exchange for virtual currency.”  Computerworld reported that Mt.

Employees’ rights in bankruptcy in the UAE On the face of it, employees’ rights in the UAE seem to be well protected by the bankruptcy laws. Under Article 713(1) of Federal Law No. 18 of 1993 (Commercial Transactions Law), the wages and salaries of workers that have become due 30 days prior to the adjudication of bankruptcy may be paid on a super-priority level (“regardless of any other debt”) by the bankruptcy trustee. However, there is some uncertainty as to whether employees would be paid before secured creditors as the bankruptcy laws remain largely untested in the UAE courts.