2017 Cross-Border Insolvency Program

Insolvency practitioners from the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and South America provide an overview of the most significant insolvency-related developments in their respective jurisdictions.

The recent insolvencies commenced by multiple shippers and oil and gas companies have raised several issues concerning the interplay of admiralty and insolvency law, especially in light of declining commodity prices and many shippers having either pulled their vessels out of service and/or decommissioned them. These issues include the adjudication of competing claims to assets that may be located either on the water, onboard the ships, or in containers, as well as the intersection of admiralty and insolvency law applicable to oil and gas insolvencies on the competing claims on the assets owned by these companies.

In an environment where business takes place largely without regard to borders, avoidance proceedings can catch suppliers off-guard. This panel will discuss the similarities and differences among local avoidance regimes and the challenges facing suppliers dealing across borders. The panel will also address the issues encountered in attempting to enforce cross-border avoidance judgments. The panelists will also examine the scope by which bankruptcy courts may (and may not) adjudicate avoidance actions under chapter 15, as well as how avoidance actions are administered pursuant to the European Insolvency Regulation and Canadian insolvency legislation.

This panel of judges and insolvency professionals from various jurisdictions will provide insight into inter-court communications and the challenges faced by judges dealing with cross-border insolvency proceedings. The panel will discuss the use of protocols, the American Law Institute’s Guidelines Application to Court-to-Court Communications in Cross Border Cases and more.

In the past few months, we have seen once-prominent Brazilian companies face financial distress as a result of governmental mistakes, political unease, global decline in oil and gas prices and the downturn in the local credit markets. Most importantly, the Petrobras bribery and corruption scandal has had wide-ranging effects on Brazilian companies, from the criminal prosecution of corporate executives to open-ended prohibitions on future contracts with Petrobras and, in some instances, fines millions of reais. Fabio Vassel and Luis DeLucio will discuss how the current Brazilian economic and political landscape is likely to impact Brazilian companies, lenders and investors in the years to come.

This panel will feature a discussion with leading experts in the field of Latin American restructurings about the recent — and not-so-recent — updates to insolvency statutes throughout the region. While some of these new insolvency regimes remain largely untested, others offer both lessons and open questions about the potential for a true convergence of Latin American restructuring laws to other more established and tested jurisdictions. Market experts will discuss the latest developments in Latin American restructurings and offer their insights into the opportunities and challenges facing investors and lenders in the current Latin American economy.

Foreign representatives have begun using chapter 15 more creatively in seeking a broad array of relief; consequently, parties in the U.S. have increasingly been raising a number of challenges. In 2014, foreign representatives were presented with a number of objections to chapter 15 relief, including objections questioning the proper location of the foreign debtor’s center of main interests and the fairness of proceedings before the foreign court. This panel will discuss cases that address these issues, including In re Octaviar Admin. Pty Ltd., In re Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. and In re Rede Energia, S.A., and the steps the foreign representatives in those cases took to maximize their likelihood of obtaining relief in the U.S. The panel will also discuss whether chapter 15 recognition is a prerequisite to seeking relief in a U.S. court, and will analyze the split of authority on that issue.

Many companies operating in and around the energy industry have been adversely affected by the recent precipitous drop in the price of oil, a global trend that has exposed vulnerabilities in a number of industry segments and individual companies. The companies, their exposures and the complicated issues raised by their distress span the Americas. This panel will introduce the industry and recent trends, cover the ways that these companies finance themselves and operate, and discuss a number of complex multijurisdictional finance, legal, regulatory and environmental issues that will be significant in these restructurings.