In today's global economy, cross-border structures, frequently including an offshore entity, have become familiar to office holders around the world. 

However, the territorial limits of a court’s powers can mean that such structures present obstacles with which office holders attempting to conduct an orderly and efficient winding up of a debtor's affairs need to familiarise themselves.

The principle of modified universalism mandates that, within the constraints of public policy, courts should co-operate across jurisdictions. 

The English High Court has sanctioned the scheme of arrangement proposed by Provident Financial, by which the net liabilities of two Provident group companies to their redress creditors will be subject to a 90-95% haircut. This case raises two interesting questions.

Why was the scheme sanctioned when the recent Amigo Loans scheme was not?

Some further important guidance by Zacaroli J in the recent judgment on Hurricane Energy. In that case, the company (with the support of the company's ad hoc committee of bond holders who were going to take 95% of the equity under the plan in return for certain adjustments to the bonds) sought to cram down the class of dissenting shareholders through a restructuring plan ("plan").

Grand Court confirms that Section 48 of the Trusts Act (2021 Revision) provides a statutory gateway for the approval of former liquidators' fees as statutory trustee pursuant to Order 23, rule 5 of the CWR

International Insolvency & Restructuring Report 2021/22 capital markets intelligence Insolvency cover 2021-22.indd 1 29/04/2021 11:12:07 International Insolvency & Restructuring Report 2021/22 The unprecedented financial volatility and operational uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many companies to consider a range of restructuring options in a variety of jurisdictions, either on a proactive basis or as a reaction to creditor pressure.

The court found that it could not sanction the scheme, despite the requisite majority of creditors having voted in favour of it. The intervention by the FCA at the sanction hearing marks an interesting development in assessing the extent to which the regulator's views will be aired and considered.

This case is a reminder to both debtors and nominees that corporate law formalities must be respected and that the insolvency lens may affect the treatment of connected party transactions in future valuations and restructuring processes.

The Regis landlords made multiple complaints regarding the disclosure and valuation of connected party transactions and the large uniform discount applied to multiple landlords for voting purposes (75%). The only argument found in their favour was the mistreatment of one of the intercompany loans.

Key takeaways -

An important judgment by Snowden J yesterday, sanctioning Virgin Active's restructuring plans after a contested sanction hearing, which included a cram down of several landlord classes that did not approve the plans by the requisite majorities in those classes.

The decision is important as among the many points covered, it considers certain key issues including:

The Irish Government has published the details of a new 'out-of-court' rescue process for small companies, the Small Company Administrative Rescue Process or 'SCARP'. The process seeks to borrow some features from the well-established examinership rescue process, but with one fundamental difference, being the limited role of the Irish courts proposed for SCARP. The relative high cost of examinership for smaller companies has historically been found to be a barrier for entry.

An important judgment handed down by Zacaroli J yesterday in the New Look CVA challenge. The New Look CVA proposal involved treating landlords of different leases in various different ways, including (i) resetting rent to a turnover percentage (ii) keeping rent intact and (iii) reducing rent to nil. Landlords are given the flexibility to terminate leases within a prescribed period where they identify a tenant prepared to pay better rent (important to ensure the landlord's proprietary right is not interfered with). In a CVA, all unsecured creditors are invited to vote.