Facts
Insolvency Act 2003
Comment
In the Three Arrows case,(1) the BVI Court has endorsed what is believed to be its first extra-territorial order summoning directors of a BVI company (in liquidation) to appear for private examination by joint liquidators.
Following a number of recent high-profile collapses of banks in Europe and the United States (notably, Credit Suisse, Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank), not only their investors but also their clients may be considering their position under financing arrangements and applicable insolvency law.
Here are five steps that corporate borrowers can take to protect themselves against the fall-out of their financing banks’ insolvency:
Dispute Resolution analysis: Following a liability trial, an unfair prejudice petition under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 has been dismissed. None of the alleged instances of unfair prejudice directed against the Respondents was made out.
Pickering v Hughes and ors [2022] EWHC 3359 (Ch)
What are the practical implications of this case?
Banks often take security for the loans they advance – doing so gives them some additional protection if a borrower fails to repay the loan when due. Where the borrower is a company, that security can take the form of a mortgage, a security assignment, a pledge, lien, or a charge. In this short article, we explain what a charge is and the differences between a fixed and floating charge.
But firstly, what is a charge?
Lenders often attempt to limit what a borrower can do outside the ordinary course of business by negotiating contractual protections. Some of these provisions are designed to make the borrowers bankruptcy remote by, for example, requiring the borrower’s Board to include an independent director whose consent is required for a bankruptcy filing. Others, as was the case we discuss here, however, go further by including contractual rights that limit a borrower’s ability to file for bankruptcy without the lender’s consent.
The law can be slow to adapt to emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency. However, with a thorough knowledge of existing legal avenues, adaptation is not always necessary. Macpherson Kelley recently acted in a case that demonstrates how trustees in bankruptcy can use existing tools at their disposal to investigate, and ultimately recover, cryptocurrency held by bankrupts.
Identifying and locating cryptocurrency
If a trustee becomes aware that a bankrupt has owned or traded in cryptocurrency assets, the trustee will normally:
Einleitung und Hintergrund der Darstellung SKW SCHWARZ ist eine international tätige Wirtschaftskanzlei mit einem starken Fokus auf dem Gesellschafts- und Insolvenzrecht. Zu unseren Mandanten gehören national und international tätige Unternehmen aller Größenordnungen. In diesem Umfeld wird Rechtsberatung insbesondere dann nötig, wenn ein Kaufmann oder Unternehmen in Insolvenz fällt.
Irish company law provides that if a charge granted by a company is not registered in the Companies Registration Office (CRO) within 21 days of its creation, it is void against a liquidator and any creditor of the company. There is a duty imposed on a company which grants a charge to register the charge in the CRO but the creditor taking the charge can also do so.
Diamond Rock Developments Ltd (the Company) granted a mortgage over a property. That mortgage was registered in the Land Registry but was not registered in the CRO.
Mark Fine, Aymen Mahmoud and Sunay Radia, McDermott Will & Emery
This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.
Presently, there is a lot of talk about insolvency and the legal test for corporate insolvency. In simple terms, insolvency or bankruptcy means a company or an individual cannot pay its debts when they are due. In Australia, bankruptcy refers to individuals, and insolvency refers to a company.
In this article, we will focus on corporate insolvency. What is the legal test for solvency? When are you insolvent vs having a short-term liquidity problem? What is the presumption of insolvency, and how can you rebut the presumption and prove solvency?