The Cayman Islands' legislature has gazetted the Companies (Amendment) Bill 2021 ("Bill") which introduces a new corporate restructuring process and creates a role for a dedicated restructuring officer in the Cayman Islands.
Appointing provisional liquidators is a powerful tool, but one which often has a serious impact on the commercial operations and business reputation of a company, and so is not a step to be taken lightly. This article examines recent judicial trends in the Cayman Islands regarding the appointment of provisional liquidators, and in particular, in relation to the balance of justice that needs to be weighed as between a petitioner and the company.
Third-party, or nondebtor, releases have continued to attract attention from both commentators and legislators in the wake of recent cases such as Purdue Pharma LP, Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics. Most recently, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Carolyn B.
Carey Olsen is proud to have sponsored the 7th annual INSOL International Channel Islands Seminar which took place in Jersey on 14 September 2021.
The seminar, which provided a welcome opportunity for insolvency practitioners and advisers to reconnect in person, showed why Jersey and Guernsey remain leading locations for structuring complex financial transactions and for the secured lending market.
The following key points were amongst or relate to those discussed at the seminar.
No pandemic-driven barriers to enforcement
The UK Government has announced today that temporary measures to protect businesses in distress introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic through the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 will be lifted from 1 October 2021.
New measures intended to protect small businesses as the economy reopens, particularly in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, are to be introduced, with effect until 31 March 2022.
The liquidity-fueled lull in restructuring activity provides both an interesting historical echo of the late 1990s and a useful opportunity for market participants to take note of a deceptively interesting opinion in Giuliano ex rel. Consolidated Bedding, Inc. v. L&P Financial Services Co. (In re Consolidated Bedding, Inc.), Case No. 19-50727, 2021 WL 2638594 (Bankr. D. Del. June 25, 2021) (Shannon, J.).
Trilogy Management Limited v White Willow (Trustees) Limited and Others, 13 May 2021
Fallout from the global pandemic continues to throw light on the responsibilities of directors in times of financial distress. This briefing examines those duties in greater detail, particularly in relation to Guernsey’s company law.
Decisions, decisions
Directors owe duties to the companies they serve and ordinarily discharge those duties with reference to the interests of the companies’ members as a whole.
On 14 May 2021, the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China (“SPC”) and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“HKSAR”) signed the Record of Meeting on Mutual Recognition of and Assistance to Bankruptcy (Insolvency) Proceedings between the Courts of the Mainland and of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“Record of Meeting”).
In a case with wide-reaching implications for the private equity industry, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a decade-long effort by distressed debt investors to undermine the safe harbor from avoidance actions set forth in Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. On April 19, 2021, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari in the In re Tribune Company Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation (“Tribune”), preserving the safe harbor defense for LBOs established by the influential Second Circuit.