The Supreme Court recently handed down its judgment in Jetivia SA and another v Bilta (UK) Ltd (in liquidation) and others [2015] UKSC 23. The Court was unanimous in dismissing the appellants’ case that the claimants’ claims against them should be struck out on the grounds of illegality and on the basis that section 213 of the Insolvency Act 1986 does not have extra-territorial effect.
J. Paul Getty once said, “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” However, with crude oil prices nearly half of what they were a mere six months ago, Getty’s formula may not hold as true as it once did. In the latest EIA STEO Report (April 2015), the DOE projects oil prices for WTI to remain around or below $60 per barrel for the balance of 2015 and grow to $70 per barrel in 2016.
The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act (the Act) recently received Royal Assent. The Act introduces a number of new provisions across a wide range of issues, including regulatory reform, public sector procurement and companies. In relation to the insolvency and restructuring sector, there are a number of provisions which are likely to garner significant interest in the coming months.
In Allco Funds Management Limited v Trust Co (Re Services) Ltd [2014] NSWSC 1251, an inter-company loan transaction was challenged by a receiver appointed by the secured creditor to one of the companies. Common directors were involved in the transaction. The issue was whether the directors breached their fiduciary duties entitling the company via the receiver to have the transaction set aside.
The background to the case
On May 30, 2014, hedge fund Moore Capital (Moore) brought suit against the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy estate (Lehman) in the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court, seeking a declaratory judgment that it acted properly when it terminated swap agreements and setoff termination amounts in the time between the filing of the parent company Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and the eve of bankruptcy filings weeks later of Moore’s Lehman counterparties1.
A debtor company can seek to have a statutory demand set aside if there is a genuine dispute as to the existence or amount of the debt, or the company has an offsetting claim.
Because the threshold for contesting a statutory demand is relatively low, a creditor may decide it is better to issue the statutory demand for the undisputed portion of the total debt after making an appropriate allowance for the amount of the total debt in dispute or the amount of the alleged offsetting claim.
On Thursday 26th February, the Ministry of Justice announced that the insolvency exemption to sections 44 and 46 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (‘LASPO’) will continue for the time being, having been scheduled to come to an end in April 2015.
The insolvency exemption allows office holders in insolvency procedures to continue to recover from a losing party:
As disclosed recently in a bankruptcy court filing, on January 27, 2015, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) imposed a $10 million civil money penalty pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”) on Trump Taj Mahal Associates LLC. Trump Taj Mahal consented to the imposition of the penalty (subject to the bankruptcy court’s approval) and admitted that its conduct violated the BSA. This $10 million penalty, reported to be the largest BSA penalty ever imposed upon a casino, highlights the government’s ongoing focus on the gaming industry.
A bankruptcy remote entity is a special-purpose vehicle (or special purpose entity) (“SPV”) that is formed to hold a defined group of assets and to protect them from being administered as property of a bankruptcy estate. SeePaloian v. LaSalle Bank Nat’l Assn (In re Doctors Hospital of Hyde Park, Inc.), 507 B.R. 558, 701, 702 (N.D. Ill. 2013). Bankruptcy remote entities are intended to separate the credit quality of assets upon which financing is based from the credit and bankruptcy risks of the entities involved in the financing. See id.
When a company is facing short term financial difficulties the directors or shareholders may decide to make a loan to the company to pay wages.