On 14 September 2015, judgment was handed down in the case of Re SSRL Realisations Limited (In Administration), in which a landlord was granted permission to forfeit a lease by peaceable re-entry. The case will be of interest to insolvency practitioners and landlords alike – but for very different reasons.
Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in In re TPG Troy, LLC, 2015 U.S. App.
San Bernardino’s Chapter 9 case is back in the news. On May 18, the City Council approved the City’s proposed exit plan for filing with the Bankruptcy Court in a 6 to 1 vote. San Bernardino’s plan is challenging to say the least and certainly consistent with Judge Jury’s January comment that “sometimes you have to get ugly to get pretty.” The plan reflects the City’s “Gordian Knot” of financial obligations to bondholders, employees and retirees, and the City’s need to deliver essential services to residents without raising taxes beyond the breaking point.
Most bankruptcy lawyers are familiar with section 1111(b) and its attempt to rectify a perceived unfairness resulting from the ruling in In re Pine Gate Assocs., Ltd., Case No. B75-4345A, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17366 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 14, 1976). In Pinegate, the creditor’s collateral had depreciated as the result of a cyclical market fluctuation.
Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code provides a mechanism for a foreign debtor or representative in non-U.S. insolvency proceedings to protect such debtor’s U.S. assets from U.S. creditors’ collection actions or to stay any litigation commenced in the U.S. The ultimate goal in a chapter 15 proceeding is to preserve the value of the assets of the foreign debtor for the benefit of all its creditors globally.
The Supreme Court granted cert last Friday in the case of Bullard v.
This week the Court of Appeal has heard the long awaited appeal in Jervis and another v Pillar Denton Limited (Game Station) and others, better known as the Game Station case, which (depending on the outcome) may trigger a drastic change to the way in which rent in administration is treated.
Comment
The much awaited court decision on the status of Financial Support Directions (“FSDs”) and Contribution Notices (“CNs”) * issued by the Pensions Regulator against target companies after the commencement of English insolvency processes in respect of such targets was handed down by the court on Friday 10 December 2010. The reluctant decision of Mr Justice Briggs that FSDs and CNs in these circumstances were not provable debts but ranked as expenses of the insolvency process, taking precedence ahead of unsecured creditors, has caused dismay in the restructuring community.