Mac Interiors Limited (the Company), a Northern Ireland-incorporated company, has become the first company incorporated outside the Irish State (and the EU) to have an examiner appointed under the examinership regime provided for in section 509 of the Companies Act 2014 (the 2014 Act).
The European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2021 (the Regulations) were signed into law in Ireland on 27 July 2022. The Regulations provide for the transposition of the mandatory articles of Directive (EU) 2019/1023 on preventive restructuring frameworks, on discharge of debt and disqualifications, and on measures to increase the efficiency of procedures concerning restructuring, insolvency and discharge of debt (the Directive).
On 27 July 2022, the European Union (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 380/2022) (the Regulations) amended the Irish Companies Act 2014 (the Act) by transposing certain requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/1023 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 (the Directive) not already provided for in Irish law.
This has resulted in a number of modifications to the examinership regime and, for the first time, a codification of directors' duties when companies are in the `zone of insolvency'.
The changes to the Examinership regime include:
In a decision rendered on June 6, 2022, Justice Sotomayor authored the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the case Siegel v. Fitzgerald, holding that a statutory increase in United States Trustee’s fees violated the “uniformity” requirement of the Bankruptcy Clause set forth in Article I, § 7, cl. 4 of the United States Constitution, which empowers Congress to establish “uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.”1
Voyager Aviation Holdings, LLC (Voyager) is a privately held aircraft owner and lessor with approximately $2 billion in assets. Voyager is headquartered in Dublin and has offices in Stamford, Connecticut.
Earlier this year, A&L Goodbody LLP advised Voyager on the successful restructuring of its senior note obligations.1 The restructuring was implemented by way of a US exchange offer that simultaneously solicited support for both a "plan B" Irish scheme of arrangement and a "plan C" prepack US Chapter 11.
On October 12, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied, without comment, a petition for a writ of certiorari in a case challenging the doctrine of equitable mootness. Equitable mootness has been described as a “narrow doctrine by which an appellate court deems it prudent for practical reasons to forbear deciding an appeal when to grant the relief requested will undermine the finality and reliability of consummated plans of reorganization.”1 By his petition, David Hargreaves—an unsecured noteholder of debtor Nuverra Environmental Solutions Inc.
On 28 June 2021, Zacaroli J declined to sanction a restructuring plan (the “Plan”) in respect of Hurricane Energy PLC (the “Company”) under section 901F of the Companies Act 2006 (“CA 2006”). The Company is part of a group whose business is extracting oil stored within fractures in solid rock beneath the sea.
Earlier today, 26 May 2021, the final condition to the restructuring plan for the Norwegian Air Shuttle group was met, allowing the Examiner’s scheme to become effective: confirmation that the business has successfully raised 6bn NOK.
1. "German Scheme" available from 1 January 2021 in (slightly) modified form
The German Federal Parliament finally adopted the long-awaited bill to introduce a new pre-insolvency business stabilization and restructuring regime into German law.1 The new law was published in the German Federal Gazette on 29 December 2020 and will enter into force on 1 January 2021.
In several recent judgments in cases centring on complex commercial and regulatory disputes, the High Court has grappled with a number of important aspects of legal professional privilege under English law. Certain of these decisions, and their implications for parties to such disputes, are highlighted below.
Litigation privilege: sole or dominant purpose