Following are this week’s summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 17, 2023.

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration did not have authority to forgive student loans under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). Despite this defeat, the Biden administration is still working to reduce the burden of student loans. Advocates for student loan relief argue that student loans can be a crushing form of debt in part because of their treatment in bankruptcy. It is the common belief that student loans, unlike other forms of unsecured debt, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

The confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation, and increased borrowing costs culminated in countries incurring record levels of debt.[1] Despite this global debt crisis, there is currently no comprehensive set of rules or body of law to govern the restructuring of sovereign debt.

前言

美国时间3月10日，加州金融保护与创新部宣布关闭美国硅谷银行（SVB），由联邦存款保险公司接管硅谷银行，原因是流动性不足和资不抵债。值得注意的是，硅谷银行作为服务于美国甚至全球创投圈的专业性银行，其关闭和破产犹如一块巨石在创投圈砸出了巨大的水花，并且波及整个水面。美国著名创投公司Y Combinator CEO将硅谷银行破产事件称为“初创公司的灭绝性事件”。

据相关媒体报道，位于北京的一家创投基金负责人向记者表示，受硅谷银行事件牵连，国内个别创投机构在硅谷银行仍有存款或者其他相关业务，正忙着处理资金问题。从私募基金的角度而言，我们不禁担忧：硅谷银行的此次破产事件是否可能影响由其托管的私募基金的财产安全呢？该事件对境内的私募基金又有哪些警示呢？对此，本文拟梳理境内私募基金托管法规和自律规则，并就相关风险提供专业建议。

一、私募基金托管“三问”

1、第一问：哪些类型的私募基金必须托管？

根据《私募投资基金监督管理暂行办法》¹、《私募投资基金备案须知》²等相关规定，目前四类私募基金必须或者原则上必须托管：

(1）契约型私募投资基金 

The first half of 2023 witnessed the failure of three financial institutions in quick succession—Silicon Valley Bank (March 10, 2023), Signature Bank (March 12, 2023), and First Republic Bank (May 1, 2023). This was the first time three financial institutions failed in such a compressed time period since the Great Recession of 2008.

Key Takeaways

On 8 March 2023, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands appointed Joint Provisional Liquidators (“JPLs”) over Atom Holdings (the “Company”), a Cayman incorporated holding company for the Atom Group, which operated a cryptocurrency exchange via an online platform known as AAX (Atom Asset Exchange).

In the wake of several high-profile collapses of cryptocurrency exchanges, most notably FTX, Celsius, and Voyager, the state of the digital asset landscape is ever-changing, with more questions and landmines than clear paths forward. Among the many issues that arise in these bankruptcy cases is the question of how to treat and classify digital assets, especially cryptocurrencies—e.g., who owns the cryptocurrencies deposited by customers.

Summary

On June 6, 2023, the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Court”) confirmed Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC’s (“Serta”) Chapter 11 plan and held that Serta’s 2020 uptiering transaction (the “Uptiering Transaction”) did not breach Serta’s 2016 first lien credit agreement (the “Credit Agreement”).