On June 27, 2023, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (the “Committee”) in the BlockFi Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization case filed an Objection to the company’s Plan and essentially requested that the company be liquidated. The Official Committee is made up largely of 600,000 individual customers of BlockFi.
Contrasting opinions from any court, issued a month apart, are always instructive.
And we have a new such thing—from the U.S. Supreme Court, no less, and from May and June of this year. The contrast is on this subject: whether sovereign immunities of Puerto Rico and of a federally recognized tribe are abrogated in bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy courts possess broad discretion to dismiss chapter 11 bankruptcy cases for “cause” under Section 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. While the Bankruptcy Code enumerates a long (though non-exhaustive) list of instances when a case may clearly be dismissed for cause, courts generally agree that cases may also be dismissed under Section 1112(b) for the classic catch-all reason—if they are filed in “bad faith.”
The Court of Appeal (Singh, Males, and Popplewell LJJ) has delivered an important judgment on the interpretation of s.423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 in Invest Bank PSC v El-Husseini[2023] EWCA Civ 555.
As an insolvency practitioner, navigating those tricky, high risk, cases, can often take a toll on your, and your employee’s, mental health.
By definition, your work requires the ability to balance various duties and handle pressure from concerned creditors, anxious or unhelpful directors, and distressed employees. It can be a distressed and distressing environment in which to work.
The government’s Insolvency Service published its Post Implementation Review of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA) on 27 June 2023. The overall conclusion from the data collected, including a survey of insolvency practitioners, is that the permanent CIGA measures have been broadly welcomed by stakeholders and are seen as a positive addition to the UK’s rescue framework.
Hugh Miall and James Fennemore acted for the successful claimant beneficiaries in an important decision concerning insolvent trusts and powers exercised for an improper purpose.
Floating charges are common features of finance transactions both in Scotland and in England, and share some characteristics, but these securities have different origins (the Scottish floating charge is a creation of statute while the English floating charge derives from common law) and other key differences which we outline below.
The economic clouds continue to darken alongside the incessant rainstorms outside, and people are paying closer attention to the forecasts to understand what to do to keep dry.
As interest rates continue to rise, and many commentators describe a challenging economic outlook amid an extending inflationary cycle, one only has to look at the recent company collapses in the construction sector to see the struggle that businesses are facing. Times are, and certainly will be, tough for a large number of people, and there are clearly sectors in distress.
In Denaxe Limited v Cooper & Rubin, the Court of Appeal has recently considered the important issue of immunity from suit against a party who has previously sought the Court’s approval for a particular course of action. This is commonly utilised by trustees (under CPR 64) and insolvency practitioners (for example under CPR 69 and Schedule B1 of the Insolvency Act 1986) when faced with difficult questions concerning entitlements and distributions to different classes of beneficiary or creditor.