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What better time than the holiday season to discuss “gifting” in the context of chapter 11 cases.  “Gifting” commonly refers to the situation where a senior creditor pays (or allocates a portion of its collateral for the benefit of) one or more junior claimholders.  Gifting is often employed as a tool to resolve the opposition of a junior class of creditors, who are typically out-of-the-money, to the manner in which the bankruptcy case is being administered.  For instance, creditors’ committees may seek gifts from senior creditors to guarantee a recovery for general unsecured

A decision last month by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire serves as a good reminder that, although helpful, Bankruptcy Code Section 365(n)’s protection for intellectual property licenseesdefinitely has its limits.

The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has held that depositor protection provisions in Cayman Islands law only apply in respect of depositors with deposits of CI$20,000 (US$24,400) or less.1  Depositors with more than CI$20,000 on deposit do not benefit from such provisions at all, even for their first CI$20,000.  This means that, for persuasive policy reasons, the position in the Cayman Islands differs from the position in the EU under the deposit guarantee scheme.

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently issued a decision which may give a trump card to fraudulent transfer defendants seeking to use the “good faith” defense under the Bankruptcy Code’s recovery provision. This defense, set forth in section 550(b)(1), provides that a trustee may not recover a voidable transfer from “a transferee that takes for value, including satisfaction or securing of a present or antecedent debt, in good faith, and without knowledge of the voidablity of the transfer avoided[.]” (emphasis added).

Almost every year, changes are made to the set of rules that govern how bankruptcy cases are managed — the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. The changes address issues identified by an Advisory Committee made up of federal judges, bankruptcy attorneys, and others. Often there are revisions to the official bankruptcy forms as well.

At this stage of Ireland's economic cycle, in many cases obtaining a court judgment against a debtor does not necessarily ensure payment. If the judgment debtor fails to pay, there are several procedures available to a judgment creditor to attach the judgment debtor's assets and income so as to obtain payment (a process broadly termed 'execution'). In order to make such an application, the judgment creditor must of course have some knowledge of and information about the particular asset or income.

As we approach the end of 2015, now is the time to start planning the liquidation of Cayman Islands entities that have reached the end of their life cycle to ensure that unnecessary 2016 fees are not incurred.

A recent decision of the Grand Court, Primeo Fund (in official liquidation) v Herald Fund SPC (in official liquidation)1, is another win for investor certainty in the Cayman Islands.  In previous updates, we have written about Cayman Islands and BVI decisions which illustrate the various challenges associated with bringing clawback actions in the Cayman Islands against innocent arm's length mutual fund investors who have validly redeemed their shares. That message has been further reinforced, on different grounds, by Jones J in P

The recent judgment of the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal ("CICA") in Asia Pacific Limited v ARC Capital LLCexplains the approach that the Court will take when considering an application to strike-out a contributory's just and equitable winding up petition which is based on an offer to purchase the petitioner's shares at fair value. 

What is a proprietary claim? A proprietary claim is a claim to own a specific asset or sum of money.