A worldwide moratorium is one of the most important protections and tools available to a debtor in the Singapore cross-border restructuring regime. A recent Singapore High Court case, Re: Zetta Jet Pte Ltd and Others (Asia Aviation Holdings Pte Ltd, intervener) [2019] SGHC 53 ("Re Zetta Jet (2)"), highlighted some important considerations relating to such a worldwide moratorium, in particular dealing with potential conflicts between different jurisdictions.
Singapore's Cross-border Restructuring Regime
Securing support from principal creditors makes all the difference between a chapter 11 restructuring that saves a troubled shipping company and one that sinks it.
When a shipping company's financial distress is extreme, it must work fast to preserve value and stem losses. The use of chapter 11 by shipping companies to coerce principal creditors to support an unfavorable restructuring where ownership refuses to share risk is costly, value destructive and generally fruitless.
On 27 April 2015, the English High Court sanctioned a scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”) for the US$200 million 9.5% senior notes due 2015 (the “2015 Notes”) issued by DTEK Finance B.V. (the “Issuer”), a Dutch finance subsidiary of the Ukraine’s largest privately owned energy group (“DTEK”). The Scheme was approved by 91.1% of noteholders.
On August 2, 2010, Maru E. Johansen, in her capacity as the foreign representative (the “Foreign Representative”)1 in respect of Mexican insolvency proceedings regarding Compania Mexicana de Aviacion, S.A. de C.V. (“Mexicana”), filed a petition for recognition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Bankruptcy Court”), commencing a case under Chapter 15 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.2 Mexicana and its affiliates operate Mexicana Airlines, Mexico’s largest airline.
In a recent opinion,1 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York emphasized that foreign confidentiality statutes do not deprive an American court of the power to order a party subject to its jurisdiction to produce evidence — even though the act of production may be considered a criminal offense in a foreign jurisdiction and subject the party to serious consequences, including imprisonment and fines.
Background
Many participants in the multibillion-dollar distressed-debt trading markets were hoping that Federal District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin would permit expedited review of her ruling immunizing a purchaser of a claim against a debtor in bankruptcy from objections to the claim based upon the conduct of a prior holder of the claim.
In a recent ruling likely to be of great interest to debtors and creditors alike, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (the “Court”) ruled in MC Asset Recovery v. Southern Company1 (the “Southern Co. Litigation”) that fraudulent transfer claims held by a bankruptcy trustee or debtor in possession under the Bankruptcy Code continue to be viable at the conclusion of a bankruptcy case, even if all creditors’ claims have already been satisfied in full pursuant to a plan of reorganization.
European Real Estate Finance: Market Update – Q1 2021 March 2021 Authors: Jeffrey Rubinoff, Dr. Thomas Flatten, Thierry Bosly, Hadrien Servais, Carl Hugo Parment, Fernando Navarro, Christophe Goossens, Julio Peralta, Angel Calleja, Aurélie Terlinden, Alexandra Stolt, Amitaben Patel & Brendon Vyas Further information on the response to COVID-19 can be found here, and we also have a German-language article, available here, looking at the impact on commercial leases. LIBOR Discontinuation Much has happened in the world of LIBOR Discontinuation since our last update.
As more Turkish companies begin to report liquidity issues and economic pressures begin to bite, successful financial restructurings are likely to become increasingly critical to the prosperity of the Turkish economy
Only time will tell whether local processes will provide a suitable toolkit for large-scale corporate restructurings, or whether other international restructurings processes may also have a role to play.
In Russian insolvency procedures, it is quite common for third parties to try to exclude property from a debtor’s insolvent estate (konkursnaya massa) by claiming title to its real property in the absence of the registered title. These third parties may refer to the agreements that had been made prior to the commencement of the insolvency procedure as well as to the actual transfer of property to them.