Debtors in possession or other estate representatives are required to pay U.S. Trustee fees during the pendency of the case. It is often assumed that other entities to whom estate property is transferred must also pay such fees until the case is closed. But as a couple of recent cases illustrate, it may be possible with careful drafting to curtail the reporting and payment of such fees once assets are transferred to a liquidating trust.
A company voluntary arrangement (CVA) is a tool which has been widely utilised by companies seeking to restructure and compromise liabilities.
In recent years CVAs have been in the limelight because of attacks by landlords who feel that they have been unfairly prejudiced by the CVA terms. Largely, challenges such as those to the Regis and New Look CVAs have been unsuccessful, but arguments about unfair prejudice based on “vote swamping” were left open for future debate.
For at least the past decade, federal bankruptcy courts have routinely prohibited cannabis businesses from seeking protection under federal bankruptcy law, regardless of whether a cannabis business is legally operating under state law.
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.
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?
Alexandros Kontogeorgiou and Georgia Papathanasiou, Kontogeorgiou Bakopanou & Associates Law Firm
This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.
Matthew Czyzyk, Natalie Blanc, Natalie Raine and Emily Ma, Ropes & Gray
This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.