In October 2009 the Greek airline, Olympic Airlines SA ("OA"), entered "special liquidation" in Greece after the European Commission ordered it to repay illegal state aid from the Greek Government. OA employed about 27 employees in the UK, who participated in an occupational pension scheme. In June 2010 OA's liquidator informed the scheme's trustees that the UK employees' employment would be terminated and that pension contributions would cease from July 2010.

On 29 February 2012, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its long-awaited judgment on client money issues in the context of the Lehman's Administration. The judgment has an important bearing on likely recoveries for both segregated and non-segregated clients, the further work to be conducted by the Administrators and timing of distributions.

Summary

The Supreme Court has found that:

The Court of Appeal has resolved conflicting decisions at EAT level and confirmed that dismissals which are connected with a subsequent TUPE transfer can be automatically unfair under TUPE even where no specific transfer or purchaser is contemplated at the time of dismissal.

A group of senior lenders to European Directories SA, a Macquarie Group Ltd affiliate, have succeeded on their appeal to the English Court of Appeal in litigation with European Directories' mezzanine lenders over a €2billion loan restructuring plan for the company.

In this type of market environment, one or more of the following scenarios may apply:

On April 3, 2020, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) re-issued and extended General License No. 13E (“GL 13E”) to continue the validity period for transactions concerning Nynas AB and its subsidiaries (“Nynas”) that otherwise would be prohibited under Executive Order 13850 or Executive Order 13884 given Nynas’s 50% indirect ownership by Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (“PdVSA”).

The Australian Federal Court has made orders relieving the administrators of retailer Colette from personal liability for rent in response to the COVID-19 crisis and the current uncertainty in respect of government policy about rent relief for tenants: see

What you need to know

In re Markus, 607 B.R. 379 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2019) [click for opinion]  

In recent years, it has become common practice in large chapter 11 cases for debtors to include language in their proposed chapter 11 plan which purports to release certain nondebtors from the claims of third parties. Although some third parties may consent to the release—such as by voting in favor of the plan or otherwise electing to do so during the plan solicitation process—circumstances frequently arise in which the debtors seek approval from the bankruptcy court to release nondebtors from third parties’ claims without the consent of the third parties.

The US Supreme Court has reversed the First Circuit's ruling in Mission Products (Mission Prod. Holdings v. Tempnology, LLC (In re Tempnology, LLC), 879 F.3d 389 (1st Cir. 2018)), thereby allowing the trademark licensee in that case to continue using the licensed trademark despite the debtor trademark licensor's rejection of the underlying trademark agreement in its bankruptcy case.