Insolvency law & restructuring

Recent Articles

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  19.01.2023

  United Kingdom

  ABT Auto In­vest­ments Ltd v Aapico In­vest­ment Pte Ltd – im­port­ance of agree­ing com­mer­cially reas­on­able valu­ation meth­ods

  In this Law-Now we discuss the recent case of ABT Auto Investments Ltd v Aapico Investment Pte Ltd [2022] EWHC 2839 (Comm) which involved the remedy of appropriation, an enforcement option available under the Financial Collateral Arrangements Regulations (“FCARs”). Appropriation may be used where security is created or arises under a security financial collateral arrangement and this is agreed between the parties. The FCARs were introduced in the UK to implement EU directives, the purpose of which was to simplify the process of taking security over financial collateral across the...

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  19.12.2022

  Slovakia

  Slov­ak case-low qual­i­fies banks as re­lated parties in in­solv­en­cies

  Finance companies in Slovakia have felt endangered since 2019 when the Regional Court in Košice, acting as a second instance court confirmed a lower-court ruling that a financial party could be qualified as a related party in the eventual insolvency of the borrower as debtor. Despite the court's conclusions, there still remained some hope that the Supreme Court or Constitutional Court would overturn these decisions and rule that finance parties cannot become related parties to the debtor in standard financing relations for just doing their job and following prudential controlling rules for...

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  10.10.2022

  United Kingdom

  Su­preme Court rules on nature and tim­ing of dir­ect­ors’ duty to con­sider cred­it­ors

  The Supreme Court’s long-awaited decision in the Sequana case (handed down on 5 October 2022)[1] is the first time that the UK’s highest court has been asked to consider the proposition that directors are, in certain circumstances, under a duty in respect of creditors’ interests as distinct from shareholders’ interests. The key takeaway points from this ‘momentous decision for company law’ (the words of Lady Arden who gave one of the leading judgments) are: English law does recognise a so-called “creditor duty” (also referred to as the “rule...

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  05.10.2022

  United Kingdom

  The Eco­nom­ic Crime (Trans­par­ency and En­force­ment) Act – con­sequences for en­force­ment

  The land registration elements of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (“ECTEA”) came into force on 5 September 2022, 5 weeks after the new Companies House Register of Overseas Entities (the “OE Register”) became operational on 1 August 2022. This second stage of implementation has had an immediate impact on the registration of property acquisitions and new leases and security being taken over those acquisitions/leases. We have previously highlighted the consequences of ECTEA for real estate finance in The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act...

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  09.08.2022

  England and Wales

  Re­struc­tur­ing Plans – Cred­it­ors “out of the money” are “out of the vote”

  Summary Restructuring Plans (“Plan(s)”) were introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) as a rescue tool for companies in financial difficulty to compromise debt and other liabilities owed to secured and unsecured creditors and its members, with the court’s sanction. One of the main features of a Plan is the ability for the court to sanction the Plan (if certain conditions are satisfied) even if one or more classes of creditors and/or members vote against it; as happened in Re Virgin Active [2021]. Although the challenge to Virgin Active’s...

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  01.08.2022

  England and Wales

  Rus­sia sanc­tions up­date: UK bans new in­vest­ment in­to Rus­sia

  New UK sanctions regulations have come into force imposing the most rigorous restriction on doing business with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The twelfth amendment to the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 aims to “close off revenue streams that the Russian government could leverage” in order to “deepen…sanctions measures” and encourage Russia to “respect international law and the territorial integrity of sovereign nations”. It is now a criminal offence, imprisonable by a maximum term of seven years, for a UK citizen...

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