The English High Court has sanctioned a restructuring plan in respect of EUR 3.2 billion of bonds issued by the German real estate business, Adler Group. The main objective of the plan was to avoid Adler's imminent insolvency by facilitating access to EUR 937.5 million of new money funding and thereby providing a stable platform from which Adler Group can pursue a solvent wind-down by asset sales over time in recovered market conditions. This represents a novel use of the restructuring plan procedure, which has previously been seen exclusively as a corporate 'rescue' tool.

As the economic outlook remains uncertain, businesses of all sizes and their boards are experiencing mounting pressure from various sources. In particular, directors of companies in financial difficulty face a number of challenges. Primarily, they must decide what they can do to keep the company in business without running the risk of committing an offence or incurring personal liability, and at what stage they must stop trading.

This article outlines some key issues and strategies that directors should consider when times are tough.

In Re Zipmex Pte Ltd and other matters [2023] SGHC 88, the Singapore High Court imported into the Singapore restructuring regime the US concept of an "administrative convenience class" in a scheme voting exercise. This concept allows debtors to obtain an approval from a large number of low value creditors without those creditors being involved in the voting exercise. This reduces the administrative burden on restructuring entities.

On Friday March 10, 2023, the Bank of England moved to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into insolvency after it applied for £1.8bn of liquidity as its parent company was collapsing. The situation remains fluid, and the following Q&A reflects our understanding as of Sunday, March 12.

UK resolution authority and powers

On March 10, 2023, the Bank of England published the following statement regarding Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SVB UK):

European leveraged finance markets paused for breath in 2022, due to rising interest rates, volatile geopolitics and a tightening of financial markets across the board—but what can we expect in 2023?

Overall leveraged finance activity in Spain declined in 2022, driven primarily by a severe drop in high yield bond issuance—as was the case in virtually all markets. Having weathered the worst of COVID-19, many companies had already taken steps to bring their debt under control. However, the new year brought with it new challenges, from rising inflation to events in Ukraine.

This article will discuss whether or not a winding-up petition or bankruptcy petition can be based upon a liquidated amount of crypto which is due and payable by one party to another (a crypto-debt).

An example of such a case could be where party A agrees to transfer 100 widgets to party B in exchange for five bitcoin. Assume party A delivers the widgets, and party B accepts receipt and raises no issue with the widgets, and does not dispute their liability to transfer five bitcoin to party B.

Introduction

There is a worrying trend in the construction industry: contractor insolvencies are on the rise.

According to a release from The Insolvency Service, the construction industry accounted for 3,213 insolvency cases in the 12 months leading up to April 2022. This equates to almost a fifth (19%) of the overall cases of insolvency and, more worryingly, these numbers are still growing. These insolvencies have occurred throughout the market but have particularly affected smaller and mid-tier contractors.

In recent years, Indonesian companies have shown both a greater willingness to use foreign restructuring processes, as well as a greater need to do so given the increasingly sophisticated financing structures and investor bases seen for Indonesian businesses. Some of the notable Chapter 15 protection cases include those involving the Duniatex Group in 2020, PT Bakrie Telecom Tbk in 2018, PT Bumi Resources Tbk in 2017, and Berau Capital Resources Pte Ltd (a Singapore SPV of PT Berau Coal Energy Tbk) in 2015.

Rises in energy costs, disruption to global supply chains, the situation in Ukraine, soaring inflation and higher interest rates are pushing several major European economies towards recession. Borrowers and issuers in the leveraged loan and high yield markets are feeling the impact and the benign refinancing conditions of 2021 are long gone. The natural consequence is rising default rates – S&P's global corporate default count for 2022 surpassed 2021's year-to-date tally during September.