Business

Shutdown orders, shuttered industries and an uncertain future due to COVID-19 have left many municipalities with a diminishing revenue base and significantly increasing costs as they strive to protect the health and safety of their residents. The era of COVID-19 is also the era of protests and renewed demands for racial justice in small and larger cities, historic wildfires and weather events due to climate change, and economic-relief packages in Congress at a stalemate as we approach the November election. This panel will consider the potential impacts of these overlapping events on the financial future of our municipalities. Taking into account the lessons learned from Detroit, Puerto Rico and other municipal insolvencies, this expert panel will consider the hard questions facing community leaders, the municipal debt market, public service employees and retirees, private businesses and citizens, and potentially the courts in this unprecedented time.

Most office employees have been working from home throughout the pandemic, and businesses are increasingly realizing that office space is not as essential as once thought. In addition, retailers are closing their doors permanently or shifting exclusively to online sales. Can corporate real estate survive or reinvent itself?

As the world has now endured months of disruption from COVID-19, this panel will highlight individual measures being undertaken by various countries to cope with the pandemic.

This session will feature a mock trial of a fraudulent-transfer case demonstrating email, Facebook, Instagram, smartphone, messaging and metadata issues.

This session is for attorneys who are moderately proficient in the use of technology.

The panel will review the criteria to establish insolvency in the context of fraudulent transfers and avoidance actions. We will look at decisions related to the determination of solvency, as well as some of the more challenging valuation and evaluation issues that arise in the conduct of an evaluation. The panel will also review some of the areas subject to challenge on cross-examination.

Type “Small Business Reorganization Act” or “Subchapter V” into your search engine, and there is no lack of questions that have been posed: what the Act means, the CARES amendment, pros and cons, and whether it’s been good for businesses (the answer: maybe not). With all this interest, there is no doubt that the Act is having an impact. Questions about its implementation are being answered as the days go by and as more and more cases find their way into the courts. This session will focus on the results to date, the questions that have been settled, and the questions still in need of answers.

This program will present expert practitioner and judicial ABI Views on current developments in chapter 15 practice, including new decisions and legislative proposals. It will also introduce the new UNCITRAL model law as to enterprise group insolvency, and discuss developments in cross-border practice with Mexico.

Presented by the Commercial and Regulatory Law & Financial Advisors and Investment Bankers Committees This panel will present a primer on the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the typical capital structures of pharmaceutical/development companies versus in-pipeline companies. The panelists will examine the factors leading to the recent surge in pharmaceutical bankruptcy cases and their outcomes/resolutions, as well as § 363 sales of pharmaceutical companies’ assets and restructurings. Opiate bankruptcy cases such as Purdue and Mallinckrodt will be highlighted, as will ancillary issues that arise in pharmaceutical bankruptcy cases, such as product recalls, regulatory issues (such as with the FDA) and IP licensing issues.

Panel presented by the International Committee of the American College of Bankruptcy The panel will consider whether, if so, to what extent arbitration agreements could be used to resolve problems arising in the course of cross border insolvency proceedings. Hon Paul Heath QC and Dr. Stephan Madaus will discuss questions of arbitrability, use, and enforcement of awards in such cases; particularly under the New York Convention. Prof Troy McKenzie and Corrine Ball will focus more specifically on the use of arbitration in Chapter 15 proceedings.