Good afternoon.

Following are this week’s summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

Bankruptcy law has seen many changes in 2020 and 2021. Some of these were enacted in response to COVID, but many other changes were included in the Bankruptcy Code before the pandemic. This article highlights some of these changes and their impact on the rights of lenders, trade creditors, suppliers, landlords, tenants, and debtors.

The debtors' legal malpractice claim was "not property of their bankruptcy estate," held a split Ninth Circuit on June 30, 2020. In re Glaser, 816 Fed. Appx. 103, 104 (9th Cir. June 30, 2020) (2-1). But the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota one week later affirmed a bankruptcy court judgment that "the [debtor's] estate was the proper owner" of such a claim. In re Bruess, 2020 WL3642324, 1 (D. Minn. July 6, 2020).

A secured lender's "mere retention of property [after a pre-bankruptcy repossession] does not violate" the automatic stay provision [362(a) (3)] of the Bankruptcy Code, held a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 14, 2021. City of Chicago v. Fulton, 2021 WL 125106, 4 ( Jan. 14, 2021). Reversing the Seventh Circuit's affirmance of a bankruptcy court judgment holding a secured lender in contempt for violating the automatic stay, the Court resolved "a split" in the Circuits. Id. at 2. The Second, Eighth and Ninth Circuits had agreed with the Seventh Circuit.

Ante la actual incertidumbre en el mercado que se ha originado como consecuencia de las moratorias concursales establecidas a causa de la crisis del COVID-19, los tribunales españoles están tratando de buscar soluciones efectivas para mitigar los daños previsibles que esta inactividad puede generar. 

The second webinar in our series brought together WFW Real Estate Partner , George Nicholas, Global Head of Hotels at Savills, Felicity Black-Roberts, VP Acquisitions and Development – Europe and North Africa at Hyatt and Yannis Ermilios, Managing Director – Portfolio Management at Colony Capital. The panel debated the potential for M&A in the hotel sector, as it lined up to be the fastest-recovering of the real estate segments.

This article discusses considerations for credit funds that face a restructuring situation in the post-COVID-19 world — whether one largely caused by the challenges posed by the pandemic or one simply accelerated by such challenges — and how workouts of these investments present their own challenges.

Introduction  

European Real Estate Finance: Market Update – Q1 2021 March 2021 Authors: Jeffrey Rubinoff, Dr. Thomas Flatten, Thierry Bosly, Hadrien Servais, Carl Hugo Parment, Fernando Navarro, Christophe Goossens, Julio Peralta, Angel Calleja, Aurélie Terlinden, Alexandra Stolt, Amitaben Patel & Brendon Vyas Further information on the response to COVID-19 can be found here, and we also have a German-language article, available here, looking at the impact on commercial leases. LIBOR Discontinuation Much has happened in the world of LIBOR Discontinuation since our last update.

Earlier, at the end of last year, on LinkedIn we posted the legal alert below regarding director’s liability in bankruptcy pursuant to section 2:138/248 of the Dutch Civil Code (‘DCC’). Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, legislation has been enacted that grants directors – under specific, COVID-related circumstances – temporary relief from the strict provisions of section 2:138/248 DCC.