Events are happening quickly these days with Caesars Entertainment.  On January 13, holders of second lien notes issued by Caesars Entertainment Operating Company (“CEOC”) filed an involuntary chapter 11 petition against CEOC in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.  Two days later, CEOC itself filed a voluntary chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, setting up a venue fight over the bankruptcy case.  And later that same day, the U.S.

Imagine: you are a lender that has loaned substantial sums of money to an individual, secured by real property owned by the borrower. After the borrower defaults and negotiations fail, you seek and obtain the appointment of a receiver. But now litigation ensues—about the loan documents, about contract defaults, about interest rates, about foreign law. After a substantial investment of time and money, your trial date draws closer. At some point during this odyssey, your borrower secretly transfers the real property collateral to a newly-created, single-member LLC.

In bankruptcy proceedings involving the US retailer Crumbs Bake Shop Inc (Crumbs), the US trustee has opposed the sale of Crumbs’ customer lists on the basis that this would violate Crumbs’ privacy policy. The privacy policy allows personal data held by Crumbs to be transferred only where this is required by government authorities, needed to provide services or following customer consent.

In December, the Sixth Circuit, in Grant, Konvalinka & Harrison, P.C. v. Still (In re McKenzie), 737 F.3d 1034 (6th Cir. 2013), addressed two matters of first impression when it adopted the majority rules that (i) a creditor who seeks relief from the bankruptcy automatic stay has the burden to prove the validity of its perfected security interest in collateral; and (ii) the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations on bankruptcy avoidance actions does not prevent the trustee from asserting them defensively under section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code.

The Supreme Court of Spain has recognized it its Judgment dated September 5th, 2012, the lack of consent in a work contract on which one of the parties applied for the bankruptcy proceedings 10 days after such contract was entered by both parties.

The parties entered into a contract for execution of work by virtue of which the company that few days later applied for the insolvency proceedings, was committed to carry out the works of a building under construction.

Once the bankruptcy proceeding was started, each party issued a claim within the insolvency proceeding.

The boundary between work life and private life is becoming less clear. In last month's Workplace View, we reported on a FIFO worker who successfully claimed workers' compensation for an injury he sustained while sleeping in employer-provided accommodation. This month, the Federal Court has upheld a workers' compensation claim by a Commonwealth worker whose 'private activities' with a 'male friend' in a motel room caused a glass light fitting above the bed to fall and strike her on the nose and mouth leaving her with physical and psychological injuries.  

On October 21, 2010, the New York Court of Appeals (the Appeals Court), New York’s highest appellate court, addressed two appeals, and then issued an important ruling regarding the parameters of the affirmative defense of in pari delicto in suits against outside auditors, holding that the doctrines of in pari delicto and imputation are a complete bar to recovery when the corporate wrongdoer’s actions are imputed to the company.

The Doctrines of In Pari Delicto and Imputation

In the case of Global Knafaim Leasing Ltd & Anor v The Civil Aviation Authority & Ors [2010] EWHC 1348 (Admin), the UK’s High Court held that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and BAA Ltd. (BAA) were entitled to a statutory lien of a lessor’s aircraft, to ensure a lessor pays all the outstanding route and aircraft charges of an insolvent operator and its fleet of aircraft, and not just those related to the aircraft of the lessor.

In the event of a tenant becoming insolvent, it is clearly important for a landlord to know where rent payable ranks in administration. A recent landmark decision handed down by the High Court strengthens the position of landlords by deciding that rent can now be more widely payable as an expense of the administrator.

Background

Simply, if rent is ranked as an expense of the administration1 then it is almost always discharged in full as a mandatory expense of the administrator, rather than being placed with lower priority creditors.

The English High Court has recently delivered judgment in the IMO Car Wash case (In the matter of Bluebrook Ltd and others [2009] EWHC 2114 (Ch)), in which the High Court considered whether to sanction three related schemes of arrangement for restructuring indebtedness proposed by the IMO Car Wash group to the senior lenders of the relevant group companies.  

Background