On March 29, 2021, AeroCentury Corp., a Calif.-based publicly traded aircraft operating lessor and finance company specializing in leasing regional aircraft and engines to regional airlines and commercial users in 15 countries, announced it and certain of its subsidiaries filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 21-10636).
Commercial aviation has been one of the sectors most heavily impacted by COVID-19, but thanks to the strong controlling measures to weather the impact of the pandemic, the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC”) has been a market in which some form of aviation recovery is happening. Unfortunately, the recovery has not come soon enough for the Chinese conglomerate HNA.
“What is clear is that the selection of creditors for the class composition cannot be arbitrary or capricious. If there is evidence of a calculated and dishonest move to remove or to place certain creditors in certain class with the purpose of ensuring that the class is constituted in such a way that certain creditors would not be able to vote or that their votes would be rendered ineffective, this will be considered as class manipulation or gerrymandering.”
per Judicial Commissioner Ong Chee Kwan.
With an increase in airline restructuring activity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, aircraft financiers, lessors and their lawyers around the world have been analysing whether a restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (a ‘Plan’) can be used by debtors to modify, without the creditors’ consent, their obligations under certain leases and security agreements to which the Cape Town Convention applies.
INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE DISPUTES
2020 REVIEW
The contents of this publication are for reference purposes only. They do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific legal advice about your specific circumstances should always be sought separately before taking any action based on this publication.
INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE DISPUTES 2020 REVIEW
Contents
Preface
On Monday, 7 December, the Irish High Court affirmed the appointment of an examiner, Kieran Wallace of KPMG, to a number of companies in the Norwegian Air Group (“Norwegian”) as well as the Oslo based parent company of the group, Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA (“NAS”). The appointment of the examiner will provide Norwegian with critical protection from its creditors for a period of approximately 100 days. This article briefly outlines some aspects of the examinership process and what it entails for Norwegian’s creditors.
Tamara Oppenheimer QC, Rebecca Loveridge and Samuel Rabinowitz, Fountain Court Chambers
This is an extract from the fifth edition of GIR's The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations. The whole publication is available here.
36.1 Introduction
On 20 January 2021, the UK High Court approved the convening of a single scheme meeting for certain aircraft lessors of MAB Leasing Limited (MABL) in relation its proposed UK scheme of arrangement. This is an important step towards the implementation of a wider restructuring for the Malaysia Airlines group, but may also have wider implications on the restructuring options available not only to airlines, but also to businesses with other leased assets, including real estate.
Lessors form a single class