Update on Liquidator remuneration post-Sakr1

Key points summary

Following the recent high-profile appeal decision2, the Supreme Court of New South Wales has now finalised the saga that was the review and approval of the remuneration of the Liquidator of Sakr Nominees.

From that decision emerge several key points for insolvency professionals when considering their remuneration:

The decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in In re Motors Liquidation Company is yet the latest case to show the difficulty in using the bankruptcy process to resolve tort claims.[1]

The Background Basics

Anderson v. Credit One Bank, N.A. (In re Anderson), 884 F.3d 382 (2d Cir. 2018) [click for opinion]

If a debtor seeks to sell, pursuant to a 363 sale, real property as to which it is the landlord under an unexpired prepetition lease, can such property be sold “free and clear” of the non-debtor tenant’s leasehold interest?

Boart Longyear – the recent appeal decision

On January 31, 2017, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals authorized a court-appointed Receiver to avoid arbitration clauses contained in employment and employment-related agreements.[1] While, at first glance, the Court’s decision not to compel a non-signatory to arbitration appears unremarkable, in fact the decision reflects how far the Court was willing to go in order to protect a Receiver’s choice of a judicial forum.

Corporations reorganize to reduce costs, eliminate liabilities, improve efficiencies or a combination of all three. Rarely, if ever, does a corporate reorganization accelerate a company’s liabilities or impose new ones, but two recent decisions from federal district courts in New York demonstrate careful planning and care is needed to avoid this undesirable and expensive result.

Lenders rejoice. The Second Circuit recently issued its highly anticipated opinion in In re MPM Silicones, LLC, where it held that the appropriate cramdown interest rate in chapter 11 cases is the market rate (so long as an efficient market exists) rather than the formula rate applied by the US Supreme Court in individual debtors’ chapter 13 cases.

The proposed schemes of arrangement for certain creditors of Boart Longyear Limited (BLY) - following very recent decisions in New South Wales at trial and now appellate level - are significant for restructuring and distressed investing professionals transacting in Australia. In particular, those decisions explore the principles for separation of affected creditors into classes, and highlight that different treatment of creditors in the same class does not of itself lead to division of those differently treated creditors into separate classes.

Ever since the Companies Act, 2008 came into force, the courts have been inundated with cases pertaining to the interplay between the moratorium established by business rescue, the creditors’ claims and the effect of the business rescue plan.