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).
After depositors rushed to withdraw funds from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), on Friday, March 10, 2023, the US bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named receiver of the closed bank.
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).
Since 1988, the ‘rule in West Mercia’ – so named after the West Mercia Safetywear v Dodd Court of Appeal case – has been the leading authority for when directors of financially stressed companies are subject to the so-called ‘creditor duty’, namely the duty to consider the interests of the company’s creditors.
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:
As discussed in an earlier post called “Moving Up: Bankruptcy Code Dollar Amounts Will Increase On April 1, 2022,” various dollar amounts in the Bankruptcy Code and related statutory provisions were increased for cases filed on or after today, April 1, 2022.
An official notice from the Judicial Conference of the United States was just published announcing that certain dollar amounts in the Bankruptcy Code will be increased a larger than usual 10.973% this time for new cases filed on or after April 1, 2022.
There has been much discussion concerning the recent district court appellate decision in Purdue Pharma. See In re Purdue Pharma, Case No. 21 cv 7532 (Master Case), 2021 WL 5979108 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 16, 2021). We have been tracking developments relating to Purdue Pharma and issues concerning third-party releases: Purdue Pharma: Is Protection of Third Parties by the Automatic Stay an Oxymoron?
On May 7, 2021, we issued a legal alert regarding third-party releases as part of the plan of reorganization in the Perdue Pharma case. [Purdue Pharma: Is Protection of Third Parties by the Automatic Stay an Oxymoron?] The order confirming that plan was appealed and our subsequent legal alert dated December 21, 2021 discussed the decision by Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S.
On May 7, 2021, we issued a client alert regarding the Perdue Pharma case and the possibility that the bankruptcy case could include a release of individual non-debtor members of the Sackler family. At that time, a plan which contained terms that would effectively extend the automatic stay protections was confirmed by Judge Robert D. Drain, who presided over the bankruptcy case in the Southern District of New York.