The US Supreme Court has unanimously held that a debtor cannot void a wholly underwater second mortgage in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. The decision comes in the consolidated cases of Bank of America, N.A. v. Caulkett, No. 13-1421, and Bank of America, N.A. v. Toledo-Cardona, No. 14-163.

The regulatory amendments drawn up by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions following the outcome in Trustees of Olympic Airlines SA Pension & Life Assurance Scheme v Olympic Airlines SA have been drafted narrowly and may end up  protecting no one other than the beneficiaries of the Olympic Airlines pension scheme. 

The issue

Legal Update
September 27, 2013
In re Tribune: Defendants Successfully Challenge Individual
Creditors Standing But District Court Rules that Section 546(e)
Safe Harbor Does Not Bar Individual Creditors’ State Law Based
Constructive Fraudulent Conveyance Claims
On September 23, 2013, the US District Court
for the Southern District of New York in In re
Tribune1 held that the individual creditor suits at
issue were stayed because the Creditors’
Committee was in the process of prosecuting
claims for intentional fraudulent conveyance

Did you know... that the court may, in special circumstances, exercise its discretion to appoint pre-existing receivers as a company’s provisional liquidators.

In the recent decision ofRe K Vision International Investment (Hong Kong) Limited, the Honourable Mr. Justice Barma confirmed that, where the circumstances require it, the court will exercise its discretion to appoint pre-existing receivers of a company’s assets as that company’s provisional liquidators provided that potential conflicts of interest are identified and appropriately addressed.

Introduction

In a recent case1 the High Court held that the purported out of court appointment of administrators over a Guernsey registered limited partnership was void because the appointor used the incorrect form when giving notice of its intention to appoint.

Background

Since BP Australia Pty Ltd v Brown, there has been a practice of Courts across Australia granting "shelf orders", whereby time for voidable transaction recovery actions by a Liquidator under section 588FF is extended "at large".  The Court's power to grant these "shelf orders", however, is to be scrutinised by the High Court in December 2014, in the course of the Octaviar group liquidation.

In re Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V., No. 11-33335-HDH-15 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. June 13, 2012)

Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 12-mc-115 (S.D.N.Y. July 6, 2014) [click for opinion]

Sec. Investor Prot. Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Secs., 474 B.R. 76 (2012)

The trustee for the Securities Investor Protection Act ("SIPA") liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC ("BLMIS") filed a complaint in the bankruptcy court against Maxam Absolute Return Fund Ltd. ("Maxam"), seeking the return of about $100 million distributed to Maxam by BLMIS.  Maxam answered the complaint and then sued the trustee in the Cayman Islands seeking a declaration that it was not required to return the money.