Each week, Crowell & Moring’s State Attorneys General team highlights significant actions that State AGs have taken. Here are this week’s updates.

Monday, November 8, 2021

Antitrust

CVAs continued to be a popular restructuring tool in 2021. As the retail industry gears up for what is expected to be a busy festive period, it marks the end of another year in which the close scrutiny and attempted challenge by landlords to retail CVAs continued.

What is a CVA?

The Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill 2021 (the Bill) is expected to come into force from 25 March 2022 – it is intended to introduce an arbitration procedure for commercial rent arrears accrued by businesses during the “protected period” and also to extend the restrictions on the use of winding up proceedings and now to include personal bankruptcy.

The “protected period” relates to business tenancies adversely affected by the pandemic either by enforced closure or restrictions placed on trade. This period – as set out in section 5 of the Bill – runs from:

It is well recognized that, in keeping with the "fresh start" or "rehabilitative" policy, the Bankruptcy Code invalidates after-acquired property clauses in prepetition security agreements, but also includes an exception to the general rule for prepetition liens on the proceeds, products, offspring, or profits of prepetition collateral. Less well understood is that there is an "exception to the exception" if a bankruptcy court determines that the "equities of the case" suggest that property acquired by the estate should be free of such liens.

The Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill has been introduced in Parliament and addresses rent debts under business tenancies adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

New Legislation

Newsletter Empresa Familiar

Noviembre 2021

Newsletter Empresa Familiar

Noviembre 2021

NDICE

1. ARTCULOS

1.1 El letrado asesor, figura jurdica olvidada pero obligatoria

1.2 Nuevos derechos para las personas con discapacidad y su incidencia en la empresa familiar

1.3 Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio de los no residentes en Espaa: cuestiones clave a tener en cuenta

1.4 Qu son los criterios ESG y por qu la empresa familiar debe integrarlos en su gestin?

2. SENTENCIAS Y RESOLUCIONES

2.1 Mercantil y civil

2.1.1

Ruby Apartments held the management rights to 242 serviced apartments in Ruby One Tower, Surfers Paradise, when Receivers were appointed on 1 August 2019.The Receivers were appointed by a secured creditor one day after Ruby Apartments had appointed an administrator. Ruby Apartments was part of the Ralan Group.

The Receivers carried on the business of apartment manager until 30 September 2019, when they sold the business as a going concern to a third party purchaser.

In a chapter 13 case, which typically lasts from 3 to 5 years while a debtor makes payments according to a plan, the value of the debtor’s property can fluctuate. In a time like the present, when home prices are rising, sometimes dramatically, that could mean an increase in the value of a debtor’s home during the life of the chapter 13 which changes the financial dynamics in the case.

The High Court has dismissed a challenge to Caffe Nero's company voluntary arrangement (CVA) in Young v Nero Holdings Limited. The Applicant in the proceedings, Mr Young, was a landlord of premises let to the First Respondent, Nero Holdings Limited (the Company) and challenged the Company's CVA under s 6(1)(a) and (b) of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the Act).

Regulations have been published which, from 1 October 2021, will change the current restrictions on the use of winding up petitions (the regulations). A link to the regulations can be found here.

In summary, the regulations partially lift the temporary restriction on the use of winding up petitions imposed by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 and provide that: