On October 4, 2023, a 2 (two) judge bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India (“Supreme Court”) in the case of Union Bank of India v. Rajat Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd and Sunview Assets Pvt Ltd. held that the powers of the Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, 1950 ("Constitution”), being inherent in nature, are complementary to those powers which are specifically conferred by statute.
Brief Facts
Celsius’ retail borrowers finally have an answer on who owns the cryptocurrency they deposited into Celsius in exchange for a loan from Celsius – spoiler alert: on November 13, 2023 the bankruptcy court held that Celsius’ terms of service “clearly and unambiguously” gave Celsius ownership of retail borrowers’ cryptocurrency. The bankruptcy court’s decision follows its January 2023 decision which similarly held that the cryptocurrency of Celsius’ “Earn” customers also belonged to Celsius because the terms of service similarly unambiguously granted Celsius title ownership.
Introduction
A recent Commercial Court decision has raised an intriguing question of private international law: can a foreign judgment be enforced in England and Wales if it is not enforceable in the country where it was given?
In a recent decision in the case of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. v. HDFC Bank Ltd. and Another, the Supreme Court of India (“Supreme Court”) has held that the rents receivable by a borrower which was assigned to a lender of a lease rental discounting facility would not be treated as an asset of the borrower, and thus fall outside the purview of the asset and security freeze order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”).
Brief Facts
The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce has launched a new public consultation on the treatment of digital assets in English insolvency law.
Crypto assets are 'property'
In November 2019, the UKJT published its seminal legal statement on the status of crypto assets and smart contracts. Since then, there has been widespread acceptance that crypto assets are 'property' for the purposes of English law. And the Law Commission has recently proposed a new, third category of personal property rights to capture digital assets.
Impact on insolvency law
Over the past several years, unitranche facilities have become increasingly prevalent. This growth has been driven by the ever-growing class of private credit and direct lenders who initially developed the unitranche facility structure, along with traditional bank lenders now joining this market. The unitranche structure has several advantages, including typically quicker execution for the parties involved and in some cases a lower cost of capital to the borrower.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of several conversion claims brought by the estate of a deceased account holder against a bank, holding that one of the conversion claims was time-barred, and that the estate did not have standing to pursue the remaining conversion claims as the alleged injury was not fairly traceable to the bank.
A copy of the opinion in Muff v. Wells Fargo Bank NA is available at: Link to Opinion.
Can a debtor reinstate a defaulted loan under a Chapter 11 plan without paying default rate interest? This question was analyzed thoroughly in a recent Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court decision by Judge Philip Bentley.
Anyone working in the restructuring profession undoubtedly has encountered the ominous term “debt maturity wall” in relevant business articles and industry publications. Much like other feared apparitions such as the Loch Ness monster and Sasquatch, the maturity wall is visible at great distance but never up close. Similarly, these sightings are episodic and the evidence of their very existence is flimsy, yet they remain fixed in the public’s mind. What keeps them going? The possibility that they are real.