In the first Part 26A appeal decision since the inception of the restructuring plan in 2020, the Court of Appeal has set aside the restructuring plan sanction order that was granted to German real estate group, Adler.

Fiduciary Duties of Receivers

Receivers appointed to enforce a security owe their fiduciary duties to their appointor and not to the mortgagor. So, when realising the assets of the mortgagor, the receivers can focus their attention on pursuing that course of action which, as they judge it, is best calculated to optimise the position of their appointor; Salmon v Albarran [2023] NSWSC 1238 ("Salmon").

The English Court of Appeal has today overturned the restructuring plan sanction order made by the High Court in April 2023.

The keenly awaited judgment raises some difficult issues for Adler in the context of its restructuring, but more broadly clarifies a number of points in relation to restructuring plans.

How the court uses its discretion to sanction a plan

Following the Government's response to the UNCITRAL consultation (see our briefing here) - which suggests that, for a while at least, the rule in Gibbs is here to stay - we expect to see an increase in parallel proceedings being used when multijurisdictional corporate groups seek to restructure their debt.

As the festive season approaches, it is time to take stock of the three 2023 most important decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) on claw-back issues in insolvency.

As the nights draw in and the new year approaches, we take stock of the state of play for European restructuring and look ahead at potential trends for 2024.

Completion of legal reforms

Introducción

En las píldoras concursales de este mes destacamos:

On 30 October 2023, HM Treasury (HMT) published three documents setting out how the UK government plans to regulate cryptoassets going forward:

The Supreme Court has handed down a judgment which will be greeted with a collective sigh of relief from the insolvency world. In R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates Court [2023] UKSC 38, the Supreme Court ruled that an administrator of a company is not an “officer” of that company.

High rates of insolvencies look set to continue as the latest quarterly insolvency statistics have been published for England and Wales. Whilst the statistics show a 2% dip from the second quarter of 2023, the number of insolvencies remains 10% higher than in 2022 and shows a return to pre-pandemic levels for compulsory liquidations and administrations. It is particularly striking that the first two quarters of 2023 represent the highest quarterly insolvencies since Q2 2009.