The Delaware Court of Chancery’s recent opinion in Cygnus Opportunity Fund LLC et al. v. Washington Prime Group LLC et al. presents a veritable grab bag of potential blog posts, from a suggestion that an officer of an Limited Liability Company could be contractually bound by an LLC Agreement he never signed to the interesting interplay (and potential conflict) between an officer’s duty of obedience to the LLC’s board and the officer’s duty of disclosure to investors.
Question: Can a creditor prevent its debtor from filing bankruptcy by pre-petition contract terms?
Answer: No . . . according to In re Roberson Cartridge Co., LLC, Case No. 22-20192 in the Northern Texas Bankruptcy Court (03/07/2023, opinion at Doc. 77).
Facts
OLG Schleswig, Beschluss v. 21.02.2023 – 2 Wx 50/22
Bei Eintragung einer neu gegründeten GmbH wird insbesondere auf die Einhaltung gläubigerschützender Vorschriften geachtet. So auch bei der Offenlegung des Gründungsaufwands, der Gesamtbetrag sowie die einzelnen Posten sind in der Satzung anzugeben.
Sachverhalt
The Labor and Employment Group at Hogan Lovells is proud to have contributed to the 2020 version of the firm’s Doing Business in the United States Guide. The Guide provides a high-level overview of the laws and practices important to foreign investors interested in operating in the United States, including recent legal developments.
The existence of a legal entity can be compared with human life, i.e. establishment (birth), activities (human life) and liquidation (death). However, in each of the comparable phenomena above, from the point of view of law, there are significant differences. In the framework of this article, we focus on the consideration of the legal ‘death’ (liquidation) of legal entities, and study this issue in relation to certain types of corporations (business entities).
前言
根据《公司法》第186条第2款的规定，公司在分别支付清算费用、职工的工资、社会保险费用和法定补偿金，缴纳所欠税款，清偿公司债务后的剩余财产（“清算后的剩余财产”），有限责任公司按照股东的出资比例分配，股份有限公司按照股东持有的股份比例分配；但是根据PE/VC投融资实践中惯常的投资人优先清算权条款，对于该等清算后的剩余财产，股东之间通常会约定不按照持股比例分配，而是由投资人先于原股东取得其优先清偿额部分（Liquidation Preference Amount），然后如还有剩余的，各股东再按持股比例分配（Participation Right）。
那么该等投资人优先清算权条款是否违反了《公司法》第186条的规定呢？对于这个问题，由于相关的司法判例尚属罕见，所以法律实务工作者对于这个问题的回答往往都会附带一些“限定性语言”。
It’s tempting for a company director to not respond to a liquidator’s request to produce financial records if they contain incriminating material, but is it wise?
Collateral descriptions in financing statements are often an afterthought for secured creditors, and are frequently prepared in the simplest way possible, sometimes due to carelessness, sometimes because the debtor wishes to maintain its privacy by not disclosing specific pieces of collateral or investments, and sometimes due to administrative simplicity to minimize the cost and hassle of future amendments to financing statements in deals where the debtor regularly exchanges collateral of the same type.
Although it has been nearly a decade since the New York Court of Appeals issued its decision in Koehler v. Bank of Bermuda Ltd.,[1] making New York an attractive forum for judgment creditors to execute on judgment debtors’ assets held by themselves or others in foreign jurisdictions, the decision stands firm much to the disappointment of out-of-state competing creditors, as one such creditor recently experienced in Kassover v. Prism Ventures Partners LLC et al.[2]
Introduction
When a limited liability company goes into liquidation, its creditors are faced with considerable uncertainty, not least over their rights to securities on loans made to the defaulter. In such cases, a number of questions arise, including the following: