Key points
Care should be taken to ensure that finance documents clearly and specifically set out the intention of the parties.
Lenders should ensure that charges created in security documents are not invalidated or altered by provisions of other finance documents.
Facts
Key points
Payments under a remuneration scheme did not constitute dividends, as the formal decision to categorise them as such was taken by an accountant at the end of the year.
Assignments of claims should expressly include all claims which can be made under that assignment in order for title to pass.
The facts
Background
German insolvency law prohibits managing directors from making payments on behalf of the company after it has become illiquid or over-indebted. This does not apply to payments made when acting with the due care and diligence of a prudent business manager. Such payments are privileged as they do not reduce the insolvency estate and do not disadvantage creditors if they allow the business to continue and enable corporate recovery.
Decision
The German court has published LG München I v. 13.07.2021 - 6 O 17571/20 – the first published ruling on COVInsAG. We unpack the key takeaways from the decision below.
Background
To mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic, the German government passed the COVID-19 Insolvency Suspension Act (COVInsAG) to temporarily suspend the obligation on directors to file for insolvency where the debtor's insolvency was due to the pandemic. The COVInsAG (Section 2(1) Nos.2 and 4) also suspends large parts of the rules on insolvency avoidance.
We summarise the background and outcomes of Case C-73/20 – Oeltrans, an important ruling for liquidators faced with the avoidance of a third party payment and a conflict of laws.
The facts
In Cage Consultants Limited v Iqbal & Iqbal [2020] EWHC 2917 (Ch), the liquidators of Totalbrand Limited (the company) assigned certain claims – including for transactions at an undervalue and preferences – to litigation funders Cage Consultants Limited (CCL) under s.246ZD Insolvency Act 1986. The company was subsequently dissolved.
A former director of the company and another individual alleged to have benefitted from the transactions tried to strike out the claims. They did this on the basis that:
The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands is rising.
Therefore, in mid-April, a number of professors, insolvency practitioners, employers and labour unions petitioned to accelerate the introduction of WHOA (Wet Homologatie Onderhands Akkoord – the Act on Dutch Court Confirmation of Extrajudicial Restructuring Plans to Avert Bankruptcy), the introduction of which was already planned.
In a recent judgment, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) took the opportunity to clarify its position on sec. 17(2) German Insolvency Act (Insolvenzordnung, InsO). According to sec. 17(2) InsO a debtor is deemed insolvent if he is unable to pay his debts as they fall due (Zahlungsunfähigkeit).
The Facts
In between the presentation of a winding up petition and making of a winding up order, a company entered into a settlement agreement with the Respondent, who founded the company and was previously a shareholder and director of the company.
The Decision
An increasing body of English case law has recognised cryptocurrencies as a form of property giving rise to the possibility of insolvency clawback claims involving cryptoassets.
Recent developments