On June 2, 2022, the Austrian Financial Court ruled on the arm's length nature of a) the liability commission in context with a shareholder loan, b) the Transfer Price of products and c) the crediting of trade receivables (GZ. RV/7102082/2009).

1. はじめに

2022 年 11 月 25 日、株式会社SMBC キャピタル・パートナーズが、本邦最大の鶏卵業者で会社更生手続下にあるイセ食品株式会社の事業支援スポンサーとなることが発表された 。同月 30 日には、裁判所により、同スポンサーの代表者がイセ食品株式会社の事業家管財人に選任され 、本邦最大鶏卵業者の事業再生のための大きな一歩が踏み出されることとなった。

近年の会社更生手続においては、裁判所の監督の下、更生会社の事業支援スポンサーが選定されることは一般的な運用ともいいうるが、本件の会社更生手続は、イセ食品株式会社が自ら会社更生手続開始を申し立てたものではなく、一部の株主及び債   権者による申立てにより開始されたという特異な経過を辿っている。

以下では、申立て債権者のイニシアティブにより、債務者事業を維持し、再生につなげる手法の実例として、本件の経緯を概観することとする。

2.イセ食品グループの会社更生

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a bankruptcy court’s judgment in favor of a debtor who sought to avoid a judgment lien under California’s homestead exemption law.

In so ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that, when a judgment lien impairs a debtor’s state-law homestead exemption, the Bankruptcy Code requires courts to determine the exemption to which the debtor would have been entitled in the absence of the lien.

On the 9 of March earlier this year, the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) in the UK dismissed an appeal and confirmed that when an electronic money institution (“EMI”) is placed into administration, it was not necessary to impose a statutory trust in order to fulfil the purposes of the safeguarding provisions under EMD (Electronic Money Directive 2009/110) and PSDII (Payment Services Directive 2015/2366) considering that the spirit of both Directives was solely to preserve the sums paid by the EMI’s customers in the case of insolvency and against its other creditors.

A bankruptcy discharge “does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt– . . . for fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity.” 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(4).

The effect of this “fiduciary capacity” statute is newly before the U.S. Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari in Spring Valley Produce, Inc. v. Forrest, Case No. 22-502.

The question presented in Spring Valley is this:

It’s often hard to persuade a bankruptcy court to grant a motion for substantial contribution. Any attorney thinking about making a motion should first ask herself two questions. First, has my work benefitted both my client and other creditors? Second, did my work result in more than an incidental benefit to the bankruptcy estate? If the answer to either question is no, then the attorney should forget about making the motion. The time spent on it will be wasted, and the motion will be denied.

Further to sanction of the DeepOcean restructuring plans on 13 January 2021, on 28 January 2021 Mr Justice Trower (Trower, J) handed down his judgment setting out why – for the first time – the court had exercised its discretion to sanction a restructuring plan in the face of a dissenting class of creditors.

On September 8, 2022, a three-judge panel in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) reversed the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the “District Court”) when it determined that lenders of a syndicated loan facility to Revlon, Inc.

We have identified four judgments from 2022 which are significant for those in the private equity sector and may have particular relevance for sponsors, shareholders, management teams and/or appointees to boards. In this overview we summarise the key points and some of the practical implications.

The decisions we address are:

The UK Supreme Court has handed down its judgment in Stanford International Bank Ltd (In Liquidation) (Appellant)v HSBC Bank PLC (Respondent) [2022] UKSC 34, striking out a significant claim (£116m) for breach of the Quincecare duty on the grounds that the claimant had suffered no loss.