This Act received Royal Assent in July 2007 but no date for implementation has been published yet.
In addition to the provisions contained in this Act aimed at improving the working of the tribunals system and increasing judicial diversity, are several sections that will be of interest to financiers and insolvency professionals:
A district court judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania recently vacated a bankruptcy court’s decision allowing rejection of an oil and gas lease under section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code. The District Court held that a debtor’s oil and gas lease was a conveyance of an interest in real property and not an executory contract or unexpired lease that could be rejected in bankruptcy under Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code.
Re Powerhouse Limited: Prudential Assurance Company Limited v PRG Powerhouse Limited [2007] EWHC 1002 Ch Guarantees are widely used in commercial transactions to provide assurance to creditors that debts or other obligations owed to them are discharged fully in the event the principal debtor fails to perform. This assurance was shaken by the steps taken in early 2006 by PRG Powerhouse Limited (Powerhouse) to enter into a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) that contained proposals to release certain parent company guarantees given to landlords of premises being vacated by Powerhouse.
On 14 September 2015, judgment was handed down in the case of Re SSRL Realisations Limited (In Administration), in which a landlord was granted permission to forfeit a lease by peaceable re-entry. The case will be of interest to insolvency practitioners and landlords alike – but for very different reasons.
The Law 9/2015 includes the following novelties:
1. In Regard to the Insolvency Agreement
Law 9/2015 presents a series of novelties regarding the insolvency agreement, such as:
Further to our blog about measures announced by the Government to protect commercial tenants from “aggressive” rent collection strategies, the Government subsequently confirmed that the restrictions will apply (unless extended) from:
A recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals may have muddied the question of the impact of collateral rent assignments on a debtor’s ability to re-organize under chapter 11.
At the end of March, the Government introduced measures providing a moratorium on evictions for commercial tenants for non-payment of rent until 30 June 2020.
Downtown Redevelopment Districts
We previously considered the potential implications for insolvency professionals of the rise of cryptocurrencies (available here). One of the principal issues identified was the uncertainty surrounding the legal status of cryptocurrencies; what class of asset were they and, subsequently, how would they be treated under English law?