Bankruptcy protection under Section 365 does not give brand owners/debtor-licensors the unilateral right to rescind trademark licensing agreements.

The Situation: Claims brought by insolvency administrators under Section 64 of the German Limited Liability Companies Act are not only among the most common, but also the most financially significant, claims faced by the directors of distressed German companies.

The Development: In a landmark decision, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf recently determined that claims brought under Section 64 of the GmbHG are not covered by insuring provisions found in many D&O insurance policies.

In U.S. Capital Bank N.A. v. Village at Lakeridge, LLC, No. 15-1509 (U.S. Mar. 5, 2018), the U.S. Supreme Court held that an appellate court should apply a deferential standard of review to a bankruptcy court's decision as to whether a creditor is a "nonstatutory" insider. Nonstatutory insiders are creditors who are not specifically designated as insiders under the Bankruptcy Code (such as officers, directors, and controlling shareholders), but who the bankruptcy court determines nonetheless have sufficient influence over a debtor to be deemed insiders.

The ability to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. A pair of bankruptcy court rulings handed down in 2017 widened a rift among the courts on this issue.

In Weisfelner v. Blavatnik(In re Lyondell Chemical Company), 2017 BL 131876 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Apr. 21, 2017), the bankruptcy court presiding over the chapter 11 case of Lyondell Chemical Company ("Lyondell") handed down a long-anticipated opinion in the protracted litigation concerning the failed 2007 merger of Lyondell with Basell AF S.C.A. ("Basell"), a Netherlands-based petrochemical company.

On February 8, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma dismissed the class action lawsuit brought by unsecured bondholders of Chesapeake Energy Corporation ("Chesapeake"), adopting the so-called narrow reading of Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act of 1939 ("TIA").[1]

Section 350(b) of the Bankruptcy Code permits a bankruptcy court under certain circumstances to reopen a bankruptcy case even after the estate has been fully administered and the case is closed. In In re Atari, 2016 BL 125936 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Apr. 20, 2016), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York explored the circumstances under which it may be appropriate to reopen a closed chapter 11 case.

Background

On 7 December 2015, the Australian Government released its "National Innovation and Science Agenda" ("Agenda"). In the Agenda, the Government outlined its intention to make three significant reforms to Australia's insolvency laws, adopting the recommendations of the Productivity Commission ("Commission") in its report, "Business Set-Up, Transfer and Closure" ("Report"), released on the same day as the Agenda:

Key Points  

In a matter of first impression, the Delaware Court of Chancery held inQuadrant Structured Products Co. Ltd. v. Vertin, No. 6990-VCL, 2015 BL 128889 (Del. Ch. May 4, 2015), that a creditor suing derivatively on behalf of an insolvent corporation does not lose standing to prosecute the derivative claims if the corporation becomes solvent while the lawsuit is pending. In so ruling, the court expressly rejected a “continuous insolvency” or an “irretrievable insolvency” requirement for standing purposes.