On 12 June 2019, after a tense meeting with landlords and creditors, the company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) proposed by the Arcadia Group Ltd (Arcadia) were approved by the requisite majority of creditors, allowing the group to restructure its balance sheet and stave off, at least for the time being, a liquidation or administration proceeding.

Arcadia's decline

The banking reform package marks an important step toward the completion of the European post-crisis regulatory reforms

While the High Court has provided some clarity on the operation of the statutory priority regime, insolvency practitioners will still need to tread carefully when dealing with corporate trustees.

For insolvency practitioners who need clarity on how receivers and/or liquidators should pay, out of trust assets, priority employee claims arising from trust liabilities, the High Court's decision in Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts Australia Pty Ltd v The Commonwealth of Australia & Ors [2019] HCA 20 (Amerind) is a welcome result.

A recent Full Court decision is a win for directors who hold D&O insurance policies, as well as those seeking to bring proceedings against directors of an insolvent company – probably to the dismay of insurers.

On May 20, 2019, the Supreme Court held in Mission Products Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC that a debtor-licensor's rejection of a trademark license agreement does not "deprive the licensee of its rights to use the trademark." This holding resolves a longstanding circuit split in the Federal Courts of Appeal about the effects of bankruptcy on trademark licenses.

Background

Presented as a major measure of the five-year French presidential term, the law “on growth and business transformation”, also known as the PACTE Act, came into force on May 24th, 2019. Amongst the changes that were brought, some of them deserve a particular focus.

Two phases of the reform. The PACTE Act revises the insolvency legal framework and mainly empowers the executive to directly implement the EU insolvency directive and to reform the law on security interests within a period of two years.

The first phase of the reform

A Singaporean construction company in liquidation has successfully sued one of its former directors for failing to act in the best interests of the company, highlighting the importance of directors being aware of, and protecting against, potential personal liability for breach of duty.

Directors’ liability – the risk

Increasingly, formal restructures, whether solvent or insolvent in nature, are closely aligned to court-supervised processes, adding certainty and transparency to the restructuring process.

The decision in the Go Energy Group is an important one for insolvency practitioners, who now have guidance on how to manage the conflicts that can arise when acting as liquidator to multiple companies within a corporate group.

A worldwide moratorium is one of the most important protections and tools available to a debtor in the Singapore cross-border restructuring regime. A recent Singapore High Court case, Re: Zetta Jet Pte Ltd and Others (Asia Aviation Holdings Pte Ltd, intervener) [2019] SGHC 53 ("Re Zetta Jet (2)"), highlighted some important considerations relating to such a worldwide moratorium, in particular dealing with potential conflicts between different jurisdictions.

Singapore's Cross-border Restructuring Regime