Corporate Chapter 11 filings remained relatively low in 2014, down slightly from 2013, due to a robust capital market environment, low interest rates and easy access to financing. These and other factors allowed highly leveraged borrowers that might otherwise have been Chapter 11 restructuring candidates to refinance or pursue other nonjudicial restructuring alternatives. Among those companies that filed corporate bankruptcies, the District of Delaware and the Southern District of New York continued to capture the lion's share of cases.

The Bankruptcy Code authorizes a bankruptcy trustee to avoid (i.e., obtain the return of) certain types of prepetition property transfers so that the bankrupt estate can be divided among creditors fairly. For example, a trustee may bring actions to set aside transfers made within a specified period before the bankruptcy (preferences) and transfers made deliberately to defraud creditors (fraudulent transfers).

The impact of Argentina's prolonged dispute with the holdouts of its defaulted debt continues to reverberate in the context of foreign sovereign debt restructuring. What has been called the "trial of the century" because of its potential impact on sovereign debt issuances — a clash between the U.S. courts and a foreign sovereign — began in 2001 with Argentina's default.

The last major revision to U.S. business reorganization laws occurred in 1978.
Since then, companies’ capital structures have become more complex and rely
more heavily on leverage, including secured debt in particular; their asset values
are driven less by hard assets and more by services, contracts, intellectual property and
other intangible assets; and their business structures and models increasingly are multinational.
Moreover, there has been a growing perception that troubled companies are

In the recent decision of Pt Bayan Resources TBK v BCBC Singapore Pte Ltd [2014] WASCA 178, the Western Australian Court of Appeal unanimously found that the Rules of the Supreme Court 1971 (WA) (RSC) were valid insofar as they empower the Court to ‘freeze’ local assets ahead of a possible foreign judgment.

Introduction

Owen, in the Matter of RiverCity Motorway Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) (Receivers and Managers Appointed) (“RiverCity”) [2014] FCA 1008