On 1 March 2021, Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. (“Brazos”) commenced a chapter 11 bankruptcy case in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Brazos is a Texas-based non-profit electric cooperative corporation that provides wholesale electricity to its members, which, in turn, provide retail electricity to Texas consumers.

The long-anticipated wave of civil enforcement actions involving participants in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has begun.

A comprehensive change to German insolvency and restructuring law has become effective starting 1 January 2021. The change allows that a company's reorganization is possible without insolvency and includes the majority decision of its creditors.

Part 1: termination rights

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA 2020) introduces important changes to the operation of cross-border insolvency regulations and impacts more broadly on the potential remedies available in the maritime sector to recover debts. In this two-part series, we consider first CIGA 2020, the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (CBIR) and termination rights, and in the second part, we review CIGA 2020, liens and set-off claims.

Has COVID-19 encouraged you to reconsider your outsourcing needs? If so, it might be time to quarantine your outsourcing agreements and give them a health check. Below we have tracked-and-traced a list of considerations to help you to isolate any potential areas in those agreements that may need sanitising.

The Federal Court has today sensibly ruled that security interests do not vest in the company grantor simply because the company had at some time previously been in liquidation, administration or subject to a deed of company arrangement (DOCA). This decision should come as a great relief to secured lenders and suppliers to companies that have successfully passed through a restructuring and have resumed "business as usual".

Executive summary

On a UK company’s insolvency, the UK tax authority (HMRC) will become a preferential creditor in respect of certain unpaid taxes (Crown Preference) with effect from 1 December 2020. Despite lobbying against the move (including in light of the COVID-19 pandemic), the UK government has persisted with the change, perhaps in an attempt to shore up its tax take.

The reform in context

What is the Cape Town Convention?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As part of the legislative changes brought about by the Finance Act 2020, the Treasury drafted the Insolvency Act 1986 (HMRC Debts: Priority on Insolvency) Regulations 2020 (the Regulations) and laid these before parliament on 14 September 2020. View a copy of the regulations.