Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will well-remember that a constant threat to the crew of the Starship Enterprise was The Borg, a multi-species civilization that operated as a collective consciousness, with all individuality extinguished. When confronting any other civilization, The Borg Collective always announced: “We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.”
Major legislative changes
Reform of English corporate insolvency framework
The Insolvency Service is reviewing responses to its consultation on significant reforms designed to improve the restructuring tools available to companies. These include:
Keeping children safe in education – revised statutory guidance
On 5 September 2016, the Department for Education’s revised guidance, ‘Keeping children safe in education’, came into force. The document is the Government’s statutory guidance which all schools, academies and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Since Marblegate was decided in 2014, the only court to address claims under §316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act (“TIA”) in the context of a corporate restructuring transaction is
Section 1104(a)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code provides for the appointment of a chapter 11 trustee “if such appointment is in the interests of the creditors, any equity security holders, and other interests of the estate . . . .” While it is not often that we see a court displace management pursuant to section 1104(a)(2), it does happen on occasion. One such recent case is In re China Fishery Group Limited. Case No. 16-11895 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Oct. 28. 2016), where Judge James L. Garrity, Jr.
In early November, the Ninth Circuit held in In re New Investments, Inc. that a debtor was required to “cure” defaults to an agreement using a post-default interest rate, overturning its prior, decades-old decision In re Entz-White Lumber & Supply, Inc., which had held that a debtor could cure agreements at pre-default interest rates.
Background
On 22 November 2016, the European Commission announced a draft directive on insolvency, restructuring and second chance in the EU in the form of the EU Business Restructuring Directive (the “Proposed Directive“) which can be read here.
Dixon v Radley House Partnership (A Firm) [2016] EWHC 2511 (TCC)
The claimant (D) brought negligence proceedings against the defendant (R) a firm of architects, for refurbishment works.
In the draft claim form, D had referred to a loss of £35,894.00 allegedly caused by negligent misrepresentation on the part of R, who had been instructed on 27 October 2007.
The draft claim form and the fee were prepared up to a value of £50,000.00 and were received by the court on 25 October 2013, less than six years after the cause of action arose.
Hoku, a publicly-owned Delaware corporation, filed for bankruptcy with just $8 million in assets compared to a relatively staggering $1.3 billion in liabilities, much of which was funded debt. In light of this significant insolvency, Hoku’s chapter 7 trustee brought various breach of fiduciary claims against Hoku’s board of directors, including one akin to a claim for “deepening insolvency.” As the case of Hopkins v.