CNN reports on the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its target interest rate by an additional 75 basis points to a range of 3.00% to 3.25% in an effort to combat persistent inflation in the US. This is the fifth time the Federal Reserve has raised rates this year. [CNN; Sept. 21, 2022]
Reporting from Reuters indicates that the German government plans to relax certain corporate insolvency rules in response to rising energy costs so that companies with financially sound business plans can avoid being required to file for protection under Germany’s insolvency laws. [Reuters; Sept. 9, 2022]
Bloomberg reports that the United States Court of Appeals for
The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Senate passed a bill to require lawyers, accountants, consultants and other professionals hired by Puerto Rico in its bankruptcy proceedings to make additional disclosures of their various connections, in order to shed light on potential conflicts of interest. In February 2021, a companion version of this bill
Reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicates that plaintiffs in price fixing lawsuits against generic drugmaker Teligent Inc. have sought court authority to continue that litigation despite Teligent’s October bankruptcy filing. The litigation, which commenced in 2016, alleges that Teligent artificially inflated the costs of certain generic drugs and is being pursued primarily by attorneys
In a recent opinion from the Delaware Bankruptcy Court in the Dura Automotive Systems bankruptcy case,[1] Judge Karen Owens held that executory contracts cannot be impliedly assumed through course of conduct by the parties, under binding Third Circuit precedent, notwithstanding that a minority of courts outside of the Third Circuit have allowed it under
Reuters reports that Limetree Bay refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 12, 2021, requires at least $1 billion in funding in order to continue operating as a going concern. The Limetree refinery, which was only recently resurrected, was in operation for only three months before U.S.
Bloomberg reports on shifting dynamics in the retail sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the transition that certain financial advisory firms have made from advising on liquidating retail assets to sourcing and selling goods at brick-and-mortar retail locations they operate. The article highlights a new off-price department store, Shopper’s Find, that two global financial
Mayer Brown partners Dr. Thomas S. T. So and Vivien S. K. Yip and registered foreign lawyer Evan Zhou recently published an article for Mayer Brown’s Perspectives & Events portal on a new cooperation arrangement for mutual recognition of and assistance to cross-border corporate insolvency and debt restructuring proceedings between Mainland China and Hong Kong.
In its recent opinion arising out of the Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. bankruptcy case, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed that while a creditor retains its direct setoff rights against a debtor under Section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code when both it and the debtor owe debts to one another, so called “triangular” setoffs – setoffs relating to affiliated third party debts – are not similarly protected, even if provided for contractually.1 In so holding, the Third Circuit became the first US circuit court of appeals to reach the issue and affirmed a substantial body of law on the topic developed by numerous lower courts.
Continue Reading Opinion of Interest – In re Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.: “Mutual” Means Mutual Third Circuit Confirms that Triangular Setoffs not Entitled to Protection under Section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code
In its recent decision in Matter of First River Energy, LLC,1 the Fifth Circuit resolved a priority dispute between lienholders regarding their competing claims to cash held by the debtor, First River Energy, LLC. The cash at issue was the proceeds of a pre-bankruptcy sale of crude oil that the debtor purchased from certain producers (located in Texas and in Oklahoma) and then sold on to certain downstream purchasers. Following the debtor’s filing, each of the producers asserted a first-priority lien on the cash proceeds, as did the administrative agent for certain of First River Energy’s secured lenders. The administrative agent subsequently filed an adversary proceeding seeking to confirm its first priority status (senior to the producers), based on its perfection by the filing of a first-in-time UCC-1 financing statement with the Delaware Secretary of State in 2015. The two issues before the Bankruptcy Court were what law applied to the priority dispute (as between Delaware, First River’s state of organization, or Texas or Oklahoma, the locations of the producers and the oil sold) and, based on such choice of law, the priority of the parties’ liens. The Bankruptcy Court ruled that Delaware law applied and found that, under Delaware law, the administrative agent’s lien had priority over the lien of the Texas producers, but that the administrative agent’s lien did not have priority over the Oklahoma producers’ lien. The Fifth Circuit took an interlocutory appeal of the decision.
Continue Reading Opinion of Interest – Matter of First River Energy: Some State-Specific Liens May be no More than “Amazing Disappearing Security Interests”