Pooling Orders: Use of Property in a Joint Business

Morgan v McMillan Investment Holdings Pty Ltd [2024] HCA 33("McMillan")

"Where two or more related companies have engaged in a common business enterprise and are being wound up in insolvency, it may be appropriate in certain circumstances for the separate entities of the companies to be disregarded so that they are wound up together as if they were the one company." Harmer Report [854]

Our latest briefing compares recent developments in the APAC restructuring market with those in the UK. Despite APAC's and the UK's divergent monetary policy and growth forecasts, we find that restructuring markets in both regions are seeing very similar themes:

Introducción

Dentro de las resoluciones concursales publicadas este verano vuelven a cobrar especial protagonismo las relativas a los planes de restructuración. La ley 16/2022, de 5 de septiembre, que introdujo los planes en nuestro ordenamiento cumple ahora dos años de vigencia y poco a poco se va formando un nutrido cuerpo de doctrina jurisprudencial.

Dicha doctrina comienza a perfilar límites en la flexibilidad total que se predica de los planes. En concreto en esta edición de las píldoras concursales reseñamos dos nuevas resoluciones clave, que son:

What you need to know

The Eighth Circuit held that “avoidance actions [e.g., preferences, fraudulent transfers] can be sold as property of the [Chapter 7 debtor’s] estate.” In re Simply Essentials, LLC, 2023 WL 5341506, *1 (8th Cir. Aug. 21, 2023). On a direct appeal from the bankruptcy court, the court affirmed the bankruptcy court’s granting of the trustee’s motions to compromise and sell property under Bankruptcy Code §363(f). A creditor had objected, arguing unsuccessfully that “avoidance actions… are not part of the bankruptcy estate ….” Id.

On July 28, 2023, Judge Michael Kaplan of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey issued an opinion granting motions to dismiss LTL Management LLC’s second chapter 11 case, finding that it was filed in bad faith due to a lack of imminent and immediate financial distress. See In re LTL Mgmt., LLC, No. 23-12825 (MBK), 2023 WL 4851759 (Bankr. D.N.J. July 28, 2023). Judge Kaplan’s decision follows the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s dismissal of LTL’s first chapter 11 bankruptcy case in January 2023.

Over the past year, digital asset investors have become acutely aware of asset custody and counterparty credit risks due to the high-profile bankruptcies of Voyager, Celsius, BlockFi, and FTX. These investors have found that, at times, their assets may be stuck in a bankruptcy proceeding for years. However, these investors—now bankruptcy claim holders—have options for more immediate liquidity.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit quietly affirmed a bankruptcy court’s dismissal of an involuntary petition because the petitioners’ “claims were the subject of bona fide disputes within the meaning of” Bankruptcy Code (Code) §303(b)(1) (petitioner may not hold claim that is “the subject of a bona fide dispute as to liability or amount”). In re Navient Solutions, LLC, 2023 WL 3487051 (2d Cir. May 17, 2023).

“Sophisticated financial titans engaged in a winner-take-all battle. There was a winner and a loser. Such an outcome was not only foreseeable, it is the only correct result. The risk of loss is a check on unrestrained behavior.”

On May 30, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s confirmation of a chapter 11 reorganization plan containing nonconsensual releases of direct claims against third-party non-debtors, including the debtor’s controlling owners, the Sacklers.