One concept—“center of main interests,” or COMI for short, one of the more significant elements borrowed from international law and incorporated into Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code—sits at the heart of the latter, enacted in 2005 as the latest U.S. legislative attempt to handle cross-border insolvencies and international restructurings.
In spite of this notion’s importance, however, bankruptcy and appellate federal courts have long divided over a thresholder issue: as of which date should a foreign debtor’s COMI be determined?
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that bankruptcy filers cannot avoid debt incurred by another’s fraud.
The 9-0 ruling, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, unanimously rejected Kate Bartenwerfer's bid to use U.S. bankruptcy code protection to eliminate debts on the grounds that she was unaware of fraudulent omissions made by her husband.
At a time when, globally, insured businesses are under severe financial strain, the availability and extent of their insurance assets take on a new significance. It is significant not just for troubled businesses and their insurers, but also for third parties with potential or actual claims against those businesses.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a means for resolving mass tort claims
We recently had a chance to speak to The Independent and
Bursting the Crypto Bubble and the Financial Turbulence Ahead With the FTX Group’s recent Chapter 11 filing, on the heels of the recent Celsius Network LLC Chapter 11 filing, we have entered what could be described as a “Lehman Brothers moment” for the crypto industry. This observation, together with the recent awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke and professors Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig for their pioneering research on banks and financial crises, has caused some of us to experience a déjà vu moment.
On October 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Isgur, J.) allowing a claim against a solvent debtor for a make-whole premium and post-default interest totaling approximately $387 million. Ultra Petroleum Corp., et al. v.
The Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022 provided tenants in the retail and leisure sectors who had subsisting rent arrears incurred between March 2020 and August 2021 with immunity against enforcement action from landlords. However, that immunity was only for a period of 6 months from March 2022. During that window, either landlord or tenant were able to refer the matter to arbitration if they did not come to a commercial settlement.
The final date for arbitration referrals was 23 September 2022.
A February 16, 2021 decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held, in In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers, 520 F. Supp. 3d 390, that lenders who received almost $900 million mistakenly wired to them by Citibank (the administrative agent for a $1.8-billion syndicated seven-year term loan to Revlon [2016 Loan]) were entitled to keep the money.
Despite optimistic predictions earlier in 2022, slowedglobal growth resulting, in part, from the war in Ukraine has elevated inflation and interest rates, reducing the availability of credit, increasing business borrowing costs and threatening the ability of companies to retain the confidence of their