On October 2, the official committee of unsecured creditors in the chapter 11 cases of Lyondell Chemical Co. filed a motion for the appointment of an examiner in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The committee asserts that an examiner is needed to investigate allegations of a conflicted rights offering sponsor, the debtors’ refusal to refinance the debtor-in-possession credit facility, and the debtors’ refusal to formulate a plan of reorganization with an appropriate reserve for unsecured creditors pending resolution of the committee’s adversary proceeding.
Governors of three New England states have vowed to monitor Chapter 11 proceedings launched on Monday by Fairpoint Communications, which paid $2.3 billion last year to acquire New England fixed line telephone infrastructure owned previously by Verizon Communications.
- In re TOUSA, Inc., 408 B.R. 913 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2009). Prepetition lenders could not assert third-party claims against the debtors for breach of contract based on loan document representation that debtor borrowers, on a consolidated basis, would be solvent after the financing transaction because such claims did not depend on the outcome of the fraudulent transfer claims of the creditors, which asserted that individual debtor subsidiaries were insolvent.
- In re Metaldyne Corp., 409 B.R. 671 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2009).
Introduction
No. 09-6024 (8th Cir. BAP 11/30/09)
On January 28th, the Ninth Circuit addressed the issue of whether a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee had actual notice of an unrecorded refinanced mortgage when the bankruptcy petition was electronically filed simultaneously with schedules listing the mortgage as a secured debt. The Court held that the trustee lacked actual notice. The Court found that the filing of the petition was a separate event from the filing of the schedules. The trustee was therefore a bona fide purchaser for value without notice and under state bona fide purchaser law, the trustee could avoid the unrecorded mortgage.
Over the next two years, billions of dollars in commercial real estate loans are expected to mature — loans that many property owners and landlords will not be able to pay off or refinance. As a result, a number of landlords that have purchased, built, renovated and/or refinanced their properties with short-term debt during the previous five years will find themselves in a precarious position. Market forces, combined with the tightening of credit markets, leave landlords holding over-leveraged property, unable to refinance their shortterm debt because of a lack of equity.
The South Florida Bankruptcy Court in the Tousa case ordered various creditors that had benefitted from a fraudulent conveyance to disgorge $421,000,000 to the jointly-administered Tousa bankruptcy estates. The court also ordered the avoidance of liens on the assets of various Tousa subsidiary entities who were also debtors in the bankruptcy proceedings. This case may raise increased focus upon the legal theory of fraudulent conveyance, which was the rationale used by the bankruptcy court to order the money returned.
This article originally appeared on LexisNexus.com
Produced in partnership with Susan Kelly, Caroline Castle and Ben Holland of Squire Patton Boggs.
Introduction to Common Participants in the Market
The oil and gas industry is a significant contributor to the UK economy:
References:
House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: UK offshore oil and gas industry 22 March 2016
The recently-approved Royal Decree Law 4/2014 (RDL), dated March 7 and published March 8 in the Official State Gazette (BOE), has the main goal of addressing measures to ensure the feasible restructuring of corporate debt, encouraging a relief of financial burdens for companies which, despite high debt levels, are still feasible from an operational viewpoint.