Bankruptcy and appellate courts disagree over the standard that should apply to a request for payment of a break-up fee or expense reimbursement to the losing bidder in a sale of assets outside the ordinary course of the debtor's business. Some apply a "business judgment" standard, while others require that the proposed payments satisfy the more rigorous standard applied to administrative expense claims.
The High Court has recently considered and allowed the application of an opposing creditor to extend the time allocated for the hearing to sanction a restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006. David Garner reports on the sanction hearing below.
Oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. happened on December 4, 2023. Here is a link to the official transcript of such arguments.
My Impression
I’ve read that transcript—and still don’t know what the Court is going to do.
But based on the comments/questions of the justices (which are summarized and compiled below), I do have one impression:
Section 1124(2) of the Bankruptcy Code gives chapter 11 debtors a valuable tool for use in situations where long-term prepetition debt carries a significantly lower interest rate than the rates available at the time of emergence from bankruptcy. Under this section, in a chapter 11 plan, the debtor can "cure" any defaults under the relevant agreement and "reinstate" the maturity date and other terms of the original agreement, thus enabling the debtor to "lock in" a favorable interest rate in a prepetition loan agreement upon bankruptcy emergence.
An analysis of recent statistics show what the Insolvency and Tax Disputes teams at Mishcon de Reya have long experienced – that HMRC is not in the habit of overlooking an outstanding debt.
In the recent decision of Ontario Securities Commission v Go-To Developments Holdings Inc et al, 2023 ONSC 5921 (“Go-To Developments”), the Court affirmed a receiver’s ability to control solicitor-client privilege in order to perform their mandate. The Court specifically considered whether a receiver could access email correspondence between the principal of the companies under receivership and other interested parties.
Industry insights
Following two significant insolvency decisions in the High Court of Australia (Bryant v Badenoch Integrated Logging Pty Ltd and Metal Manufactures Pty Limited v Morton), insolvency professionals and creditors have had to reassess the value and requirements of proof in unfair preference claim recoveries.
On 30 November the Supreme Court delivered its written judgment dealing with the correct test for insolvency when considering the eligibility of a debtor for a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) under the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 (as amended).
Background
One of the qualifying criteria for a PIA is that the debtor must demonstrate that the debtor is “insolvent” within the meaning of section 2(1) of the Personal Insolvency Act 2012. That provision defines the term as meaning “that the debtor is unable to pay his or her debts in full as they fall due”.
This article will look at the recent decision of David Doyle J in In the Matter of HQP Corporation Limited (in Official Liquidation) (7 July 2023) and its effect on the ability of investors to recover damages from a company in which they have acquired shares as a result of a fraudulent misrepresentation.
Introduction
The case involved an application by liquidators for direction in relation to three issues in the winding up of the Company:
1. INTRODUCTION
On 9 November 2023, a three-judge bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court comprising of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, while disposing off over 350 writ petitions, in Dilip B. Jiwarajka v. Union of India and Ors. 1 , upheld the constitutional validity of several key provisions [Section 95 to Section 100] of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (Code) pertaining to the insolvency resolution process for individuals and partnership firms.