IP licensing and insolvency reform: ipso facto clauses
Licensors of intellectual property rights may soon be unable to terminate licenses where the licensee has gone into an insolvency process.
What are ipso facto clauses and why do they matter?
Consequences and contractual options
New amendments to Polish bankruptcy law were recently introduced through the so-called Shield 2.0 legislation. According to the Insolvency Law Act, an insolvency motion must be submitted within 30 days from the day on which the grounds to declare bankruptcy occurred.
Shield 2.0 sets out exceptions from this principle, provided that two conditions are met:
The German Insolvency Act (the Act) states that certain company "cash transactions" may be contested in insolvency proceedings only in limited circumstances. Earlier this year, the German Federal Court of Justice clarified that this "cash transaction privilege" does not apply to securities granted by a debtor company for shareholder loans.
Welcome to the results of our third annual Pensions in Restructuring Survey.
This year's survey gathers views on the issues with pensions in corporate restructuring, with a particular focus on the points arising from the Department for Work and Pensions' recent white paper, "Protecting Defined Benefit Pension Schemes".
Key Points
Insurers had no priority rights to collect premiums over the proceeds of a successful action they had insured, as a result of a drafting error.
The High Court affirmed the general rule that, where a party has contracted for an unsecured right only, the court will not elevate it to a secured status.
The Facts
Key point
In certain circumstances the court will look to parallel statutory provisions where existing applicable statute does not accommodate the situation, as long as the latter is not offended, expanded or altered by doing so.
The facts
This application for directions was brought by the administrators of Lehman Brothers Europe Ltd (the “Company”) on:
An increasing body of English case law has recognised cryptocurrencies as a form of property giving rise to the possibility of insolvency clawback claims involving cryptoassets.
Recent developments
In John Doyle Construction v Erith Contractors, the Court of Appeal has further considered the interrelation of insolvency and adjudication, providing guidance on the circumstances in which an adjudication award might be enforceable by a company in liquidation.
The key takeaways
Jurisdiction
Insolvency practitioners and buyers of distressed assets beware: although the National Security and Investment Act 2021 (NSI Act) will come into effect in the UK on 4 January 2022, it has retrospective power to examine transactions from 12 November 2020.
Mandatory notification