Norwest Holdings Pte Ltd (in Liquidation) v Newport Mining Ltd [2011] SGCA 42

I am delighted to present the third edition of The Issues, an annual publication brought to you by our team at CMS Prague. As is tradition, the articles will look at general legislative developments as well as new opportunities and legal issues that you will be facing in the year ahead. We also look at sector specific topics from across industries such as consumer products, energy, financial services, hotels & leisure, lifesciences, real estate and technology, media & telecoms.

Following huge trading losses and the discovery of alleged fraud in a Singaporean subsidiary, O.W. Bunker & Trading A.S. filed for bankruptcy on 7 November 2014in the Danish court, just seven months after the company floated on the stock market.  Since then, a number of other O.W. Bunker Danish and overseas entities have also filed for bankruptcy.

Year in Review - German Law in 2016

Corporate and Commercial

Amendment to the Stock Corporation Act: The Amendment to the Stock Corporation Act 2016 (Aktien-rechtsnovelle 2016) introduced, among other things, the option to issue preference shares without subsequent payment, an extended conversion right for convertible bonds, a limitation of the issue of bearer shares for non-listed companies and new provisions on the due dates of dividend payments.

Deutsches Recht: Blick zurück 2016

Unternehmens- und Gesellschaftsrecht

Der Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) hat in einer Entscheidung im Frühjahr dieses Jahres sowie einer weiteren Entscheidung im Sommer seine bisherige Rechtsprechung zum Vorliegen genehmigungsfähiger Investitionsmaßnahmen nach § 23 Abs. 1 Anreizregulierungsverordnung (ARegV) fortgesetzt und weiter ausdifferenziert.

In a recent case decided by the Federal Court of Justice (judgment of 15 November 2012 – IX ZR 169 / 11), an energy supplier had entered into a contract with a customer “which should also terminate without notice if the customer makes an application for insolvency or where preliminary insolvency proceedings are initiated or opened based on an application by a creditor”. When the customer was forced to declare insolvency, the energy supplier and the customer’s insolvency administrator entered into a new energy-supply contract at higher rates, subject to a review of the legal position.

These days, the threat of counterparty insolvency looms over the energy sector: whether it is a natural disaster or precipitous decline in the price of oil, perhaps no industry is more susceptible to the financial decline and potential default of contracting parties.

Piggybacking off the case study involving a UK-based company in crisis after an oil spill in Nigeria, panelists Ryan Eagle of Ferrier Hodgson, Marcelo Carpenter of Sergio Bermudes Law Office, David Kelleher of Fortress Investment Group (Australia) Pty Ltd., and Fidelis Oditach of South Square discussed the key decision-making factors of investing in a similarly-situated oil and gas company. Some of the key takeaways applicable to investing in oil and gas companies generally were:

Introduction