On October 19, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida denied a defendant’s motion for judgment without prejudice concerning allegations that it knowingly ignored cease-and-desist letters sent by an individual while the individual had a pending bankruptcy petition.

2016年破産倒産法は、目的やプロセスの異なる様々な法律が乱立していた従前と比較して、財務的困難な状況に陥った企業を救済する上で重要な役割を果たしています。破産倒産法の初期の成功要因は種々ありますが、インドの立法府が同法を適切に解釈し、適時に改正してきたことが主な要因として挙げられます。一定の成果を上げている破産倒産法ですが、会社法審判所（＝NCLT）および会社法上訴審判所（＝NCLAT）の機能およびプロセスの合理化には、未だ改善の余地があります。

本記事では、一見すると合理的に見える外部要因を考慮することで、債務不履行に陥った企業債務者が、法に基づく倒産処理手続に異議を唱えることができる根拠を意図せず広げてしまった可能性のある、Air Travel Enterprises India Ltd v. Union Bank of India & Ors.事件におけるNCLATの判決について考察しています。

Facts of the case

On October 12, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied, without comment, a petition for a writ of certiorari in a case challenging the doctrine of equitable mootness. Equitable mootness has been described as a “narrow doctrine by which an appellate court deems it prudent for practical reasons to forbear deciding an appeal when to grant the relief requested will undermine the finality and reliability of consummated plans of reorganization.”1 By his petition, David Hargreaves—an unsecured noteholder of debtor Nuverra Environmental Solutions Inc.

In what could prove to be a landmark judgment, a Dubai court ruled earlier this month that the directors of a company in bankruptcy should be personally liable for the company’s debts, to the sum of almost AED 450,000,000 (around US$ 122,000,000).

Article 144 of Federal Law No.9 of 2016 (the “Bankruptcy Law”) allows a court to order directors to pay a bankrupt company’s debts where:

One gauge of the level of business distress is the number of bankruptcy applications filed, which have risen sharply in 2021. Often seen as a last resort, this indicates that despite the continued support of the government and financial institutions, many businesses see filing bankruptcy as the best option for their businesses to survive. According to the Central Bankruptcy Court (Bankruptcy Court), 9,171 bankruptcy proceedings were filed in 2020 for a total value of THB 836.803 billion (compared to 5,415 cases in 2018 and 8,398 in 2019).

The Cayman Islands Government has published the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2021 (Bill) which will introduce welcome amendments to the Companies Act (2021 Revision) (Act), to facilitate the efficient restructuring of distressed companies for the benefit of their stakeholders.

Highlights

Appointing provisional liquidators is a powerful tool, but one which often has a serious impact on the commercial operations and business reputation of a company, and so is not a step to be taken lightly. This article examines recent judicial trends in the Cayman Islands regarding the appointment of provisional liquidators, and in particular, in relation to the balance of justice that needs to be weighed as between a petitioner and the company.

A statute must be interpreted and enforced as written, regardless, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “of whether a court likes the results of that application in a particular case.” That legal maxim guided the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in a recent decision^[1] in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtor’s repeated filings and requests for dismissal of his bankruptcy cases in order to avoid foreclosure of his home.

Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code includes an important protection for lenders confronting a sale of their collateral in a borrower’s bankruptcy proceeding – the right to “credit bid" the outstanding amount of their loan. This right also affords opportunistic investors a powerful tool for use in acquiring the assets of a distressed target. For the traditional lender, the right to bid its debt in a sale of its collateral is a backstop that preserves value if no better options present themselves for recovery.