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Creative uses of collateral: opportunities for leveraged companies
Credit to leveraged companies normally ties to the cash flow of the borrower’s business. But the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the financial standing of many borrowers, upending their ability to predict cash flows and prompting them to raise capital against hard assets’ liquidation value. In the process, new transaction structures have emerged that use collateral more creatively to maximise borrowing capacity.
13 June 2024Payments by mistake: when will the discharge of an existing debt be a defence to a claim for repayment?
On 11 August 2020, Citibank made a payment of US$900m to the lenders under a syndicated loan agreement, in what the US court later described as “one of the biggest blunders in banking history”. When Citibank sued for the return of the money, the US court held that it was not entitled to repayment because the payments discharged an existing debt and the recipients had no notice of the mistake. That decision, on 16 February 2021, has understandably caused consternation among bankers. One report described the decision as “eye-watering” and one that “will strike terror into earnest hearts in the global trust and agency community”. London, of course, is another global financial hub and the industry might be equally interested to know how this dispute might have been determined as a matter of English law. This article addresses that question.
13 June 2024Does situs actually matter in disputes concerning bitcoin?
There has been considerable interest in the recent ruling of the High Court in Ion Science Ltd v Persons Unknown (unreported, 21 December 2020)1 as the first in which an English court has considered the question of situs in respect of a Bitcoin. Long described as an “intractable question”, many have taken the case to stand potentially for the proposition that the situs of a cryptoasset is the place where its owner is domiciled.
13 June 2024Scheme meetings in a global pandemic
COVID-19 has fundamentally altered how companies are able to hold meetings of their shareholders and creditors. This article explores how the courts have dealt with these disruptions in the context of schemes of arrangement under Pt 26 of the Companies Act 2006, and under the new restructuring plan regime under Pt 26A of the Companies Act 2006. It demonstrates that the courts have adopted a flexible approach, enabling meetings to be held even where members or creditors cannot physically come together due to social distancing restrictions.
13 June 2024RFR Term Rates in a post-LIBOR landscape
The 5 March 2021 announcement by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) signalled the definitive end of LIBOR. With attention turning to the post-LIBOR landscape, we examine the key features of forward-looking rates derived from RFRs (RFR Term Rates) as an alternative to other rates derived from RFRs and the circumstances and considerations for their use.
13 June 2024The proposal for a regulation on markets in crypto-assets: disjuncts between regulatory and private law
This article considers the EU Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets. Premised on what is submitted to be a disjunct in the approaches taken to regulatory and private law rights and obligations, it considers the consequent private law issues arising in misrepresentation, negligence, proprietary interests, and private international law.
13 June 2024LIBOR transition: managing customer relations
This article seeks to identify where friction points in borrower/lender relations may arise during the LIBOR transition process and how they may result in litigation. It then outlines some prudential measures banks should take to minimise the risk.
13 June 2024The business with human data: improving governance in the information age
If the sole purpose of everything is to be monetized and sold for profit, human data may be deemed the “new oil”. Yet, human data offers far greater opportunities and its reduction to a commodity creates substantial costs. The business with data has not created free markets, but conglomerates with excessive power. Data producers are denied a voice and the economic benefits to what they produce, and society is deprived of social welfare enhancing opportunities. Human data deserves a better governance structure that can be crafted from known organisational forms enhanced by modern technology.
13 June 2024CNH v Cleveland: impact of Court of Appeals decision on out-of-court European high yield restructurings
In 2020, a US court determined that minority noteholders’ rights to receive principal and interest on their notes survived a “strict foreclosure” and cancellation of notes, undertaken by the indenture trustee at the direction of a majority of noteholders. In this article, we consider the potential effect of that decision on out-of-court, majority-led share pledge enforcements, which are a key debt-restructuring tool in the European market.
13 June 2024Are banks obliged to disclose credit adjustment spreads to SONIA?
LIBOR will be replaced by SONIA from the beginning of 2022. With SONIA rates typically lower than LIBOR, banks will seek to make up the difference by application of a Credit Adjustment Spread (CAS), likely to be calculated by reference to the median difference between LIBOR and SONIA over the previous five-year period. This article considers the extent to which banks will be required to disclose the existence of the CAS and its method of calculation to customers in the light of previous findings by the court of the lack of an obligation on banks to disclose the Credit Line Utilisation (CLU) to customers.
13 June 2024
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