A Functional Law and Economics Analysis of the Restructuring Directive from a French Law Perspective
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Cramdown and Priority, International and Comparative, Legislation | 0

Vasile Rotaru (Droit & Croissance / The Rules for Growth Institute)

From a functional law and economics perspective, the recent European restructuring directive (the ‘Directive’) brings both welcome innovations and multiple pitfalls. Its final text bears the traces of the divergent objectives and inspirations of its drafters. In a recent paper, I attempt to provide a thorough analysis of the different hidden ‘models’ and important measures of the Directive, as well as its unfortunate oversights.

The first part of the paper lays the theoretical foundations of the subsequent analysis. It has long been argued that insolvency law should pursue two objectives: (i) facilitating debtor’s ex ante access to finance; and (ii) ensuring an efficient ex post distribution of resources in the economy, by restructuring economically viable companies with bad capital structures and swiftly liquidating companies with an unsustainable business. Together, the two should result in wealth maximization, the default (but by no means only) criterion for assessing business law’s merits.

The paper takes a ‘functional’ approach, which is fueled by a deep skepticism towards any extensive cost-benefit analysis. It suggests that the ex ante focus should be on ensuring that a suitable epistemic framework is in place when the decision as to the redistribution of resources has to be taken. This implies incentivizing decision-makers to reliably reveal their preferences and bear the costs of their actions while diminishing coordination failures and potential conflicts of interests. Starting with this intuition, I attempt to reformulate the classical creditors’ bargain theory, underlining that so called ‘preventive’ proceedings are no exception.

In the second part of the paper, I rely on this theoretical framework to provide a critical analysis of the main measures of the Directive. I show that the apparent complexity of its final text (the contemplated proceedings could potentially take more than 70 forms) is owed to its drafters pursuing divergent objectives: economic efficiency or short-term preservation of businesses and jobs at all costs, with an unfortunate bias in favor of the latter (especially concerning SMEs).

Moreover, two coherent formal ‘models’ of proceedings are offered. The first is a unitary, public proceeding, with a potential general moratorium for up to four months. The second is a two-step proceeding—partially inspired by the current French model—that would start with an amicable phase devoid of wide publicity and would be accompanied by individual moratoria granted on a casuistic basis where they seem justified. The second, short and public ‘closing’ phase would be triggered in the specific circumstances where the restructuring plan has to be forced upon dissenting stakeholders. Once a decision has been made as to the objectives and formal model, most of the subsequent transposition options follow.

The Directive implies a devolution of decision-making powers to classes of affected stakeholders, although the court preserves a far too important role. Indeed, stakeholders are in the best position to identify and exploit any restructuring gain. It remains to be seen which criteria will be used to ensure that the interests of members of a class are aligned and no abusive behavior takes place. Where a plan is not approved by all classes of stakeholders, the Directive provides for a cross-class cram-down, where a majority of classes or at least one class of stakeholders who are ‘in the money’ must approve the plan. The latter option could potentially lead to abuses and uncertainties, given the meagre experience of European practitioners with valuations as a going concern. The cram-down can involve a debt-equity swap imposed both on shareholders, who should be treated as any other class of stakeholders and dissenting creditors. This possibility is not trivial, as it forces creditors to continue financing the business, and should be duly justified.

Unfortunately, the contemplated protections of stakeholders’ interests are somewhat underwhelming. For instance, instead of ensuring that all stakeholders share the restructuring gain in accordance with their respective ranks in the capital structure, the Directive provides for a confusing and dangerous ‘relative’ priority rule, which will likely render the negotiations unpredictable, or, alternatively, for an incomplete ‘absolute’ priority rule. Moreover, no protection is provided against debtor’s potentially abusive behavior before the opening of proceedings.

Finally, the paper offers some insights into the expected impact of its transposition into French law. In particular, its last part suggests that any transposition needs to aim at increasing the transparency and predictability of restructuring proceedings in order to foster secondary debt markets, and therefore to ensure that impatient creditors can easily be replaced by those interested in the restructuring gain.

The full article is available here.

The Rise and Fall of Regulatory Competition in Corporate Insolvency Law in the European Union
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, International and Comparative | 0

By Horst Eidenmüller (University of Oxford; European Corporate Governance Institute – ECGI)

In a recent paper, I discuss the rise and fall of regulatory competition in corporate insolvency law in the European Union. The rise is closely associated with the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR, 2002), and it is well-documented. The United Kingdom (UK) has emerged as the ‘market leader’, especially for corporate restructurings. The fall is about to happen, triggered by a combination of factors: the recasting of the EIR (2017), the European Restructuring Directive (ERD, 2019) and, most importantly, Brexit (2019). The UK will lose its dominant market position. I present evidence to support this hypothesis.

Regulatory competition in European corporate insolvency law happened by accident: it was the unwelcome consequence of the entering into force of the EIR in 2002. The EIR was designed to eliminate forum shopping and to harmonize Member States’ jurisdiction and conflicts rules for international insolvencies. However, in practice, it did not achieve this end. The Regulation’s test for main insolvency proceedings, a company’s ‘Centre of Main Interests’, can be manipulated. Forum shopping became almost a signature feature of the EIR, and the UK emerged as the ‘market leader’ for corporate restructurings in the European Union (EU). The available data clearly confirms this assessment. The popularity of the UK as a restructuring venue also stems from the attractiveness of the Scheme of Arrangement—a procedure that is not within the scope of the EIR. Under the applicable European rules, restructuring decisions taken by courts in one Member State must be automatically recognized in all other Member States.

The regulatory landscape for corporate insolvency law in the EU is changing. The EIR was recast in 2017, the EU passed the ERD in 2019, seeking to harmonize Member States’ pre-insolvency restructuring regimes so that local businesses get local access to restructuring processes, and the UK will probably leave the EU in 2019.

I argue that the recast EIR will not significantly affect forum shopping and regulatory competition in corporate restructurings. However, the ERD will have such an effect, i.e. it will significantly reduce forum shopping and regulatory competition in corporate restructurings. This is because the ERD mandates that Member States implement certain key features of pre-insolvency restructuring regimes by 2021, effectively ruling out radical legal innovations departing from the new European standard. Unfortunately, the ERD is a ‘defective product’: it mandates inefficient procedures and should be repealed.

Most importantly, Brexit will eliminate the dominant competitor in the European restructuring market, i.e. the UK. This is because Member States will no longer be forced to automatically recognize decisions taken in UK restructuring proceedings. It appears that the restructuring market already anticipates this effect: one can observe a decline of the popularity of the Scheme of Arrangement in cross-border cases from 2016 onwards. I present evidence in the form of hand-collected data on cross-border Schemes of Arrangement to support this hypothesis.

The full article is available here.

Restructuring Italy’s New York Law Bonds
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Cramdown and Priority, International and Comparative | 0

By Andrea E. Kropp (Duke University School of Law)

Little attention has been paid to Italy’s bonds issued under New York law in discussions of Italy’s debt stock and how it will be restructured should the need arise. Because these New York law bonds have no collective action clauses and had been presumed to contain very creditor-friendly pari passu language, they appeared to be too difficult to restructure. As a result, it has been assumed that they would remain untouched, with an Italian debt restructuring impacting only local law bonds. No proposals had previously addressed how to restructure the New York law bonds because of this assumption. This article fills that gap by creating an actionable strategy to restructure the bonds and by demonstrating how the long-held presumption about the creditor-friendly pari passu language is flawed.

The article advocates for the use a set of exit amendments in an exchange offer effectuating the restructuring of the New York law bonds. These exit amendments will be used to secure execution and attachment immunity and to extend the period before creditors holding the non-exchanged bonds can accelerate. This set of exit amendments act to make the bonds quite unattractive to would-be holdout creditors. In addition, these creditors’ motivation to hold out is decreased even further because of the pari passu language in the indentures for the issuances. While the pari passu language in the bonds appeared to pose an insurmountable challenge to a restructuring, this presumption is grounded in a reading of the sales documents rather than the underlying Fiscal Agency Agreements that actually control the issuances. In contrast to the sales documents, the Fiscal Agency Agreements contain language that is much less creditor-friendly. Consequently, a recalcitrant creditor’s calculus in determining whether to hold out in a restructuring has changed significantly, making the exit amendment strategy a truly viable option.

The full article is available here.

Financially Distressed Companies, Restructuring and Creditors’ Interests: What is a Director to Do?
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Corporate Governance, Fiduciary Duties, International and Comparative | 0

By Andrew Keay (University of Leeds)

Out of court restructuring is a popular and, according to many, optimal way of resolving the circumstances of insolvent companies in the UK, and probably more so since the advent in the UK of the Enterprises Act 2002. One concern that some commentators have raised is the fact that the opportunities to engage in such restructuring are likely to be reduced given the way that the courts have approached claims that directors who have initiated restructuring strategies are liable for breach of duty in failing to take into account the interests of company creditors when their company is insolvent or near to it (as applied by section 172(3) of the Companies Act 2006 in the UK). Allied to this is the concern that if directors are not granted freedom to use their discretion in entering into a restructuring process companies might be placed into administration or liquidation when they have some prospect of continuing to trade and to do so profitably, because directors may choose to be risk averse in placing a company into administration or liquidation rather than take the risk of being held liable for breach of the duty if they attempt restructuring. This paper examines whether the aforementioned concerns are realistic, given the law, and, if they are, what directors should be doing to ensure that they do not breach the obligation in relation to creditors. These are important issues as little consideration has been given in the UK to the issue of liability of directors for breach of duty in the wake of a restructuring. The issues are considered in light of section 172(3) of the Companies Act 2006 which makes the director’s duty to promote the success of the company for the benefit of the shareholders (as under section 172(1) and providing for what is known as ‘enlightened shareholder value’) subject to any rule of law that requires directors to consider the interests of creditors. It is a rule of law in the UK (and in many Commonwealth countries and Ireland) that when their company is insolvent or in dire financial distress directors must take into account the interests of creditors.

The paper finds that while directors might be subject to liability in entering into restructuring attempts, this is only going to occur in limited cases and so there should not be particular concern over liability. This is because first of all courts will not hold directors liable if they acted in good faith and took into account the interests of creditors, and regarded these interests as paramount in their considerations. Even if the directors failed to take into account the interests of creditors or failed to make them paramount, they will not be liable where the court finds that the honest and intelligent director, taking into account creditors’ interests, would have entered into the restructuring in any event on the basis that it would benefit creditors. Obviously if directors restructure in such a way as to benefit themselves or specific creditors, or they have improper motives, then liability is more likely to ensue. But, where the directors have acted reasonably then they should be safe from challenge.

The full article is available here.

A New PDVSA? The Transfer of Venezuela’s Oil Assets to a Successor Entity and Fraudulent Conveyance
by | posted in: 363 Sale, Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, International and Comparative | 0

By Richard Levin (Jenner & Block LLP) and Roland Pettersson (LEC Abogados).

This Working Paper analysis the hypothetical transfer and conveyance of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.’s assets to a new state-owned entity by the Venezuelan Government, and the possible creditor responses to such action, on account of the Venezuela’s NOC current financial-distress situation. The study is conducted from the perspective of Venezuelan law, which might provide certain legal remedies under Civil, Commercial and Administrative law—although with somehow little practical success expectations, given other factors and externalities—as well as from the perspective of U.S. law, which is of particular relevance, given (i) significant asset exposure in the U.S., where PDVSA—through CITGO—maintains an important operation, (ii) the contractual terms in the bulk of Venezuela and PDVSA’s financial indebtedness relies on U.S. law and provides for submission to the jurisdiction of NY courts, and (iii) many creditors are actually U.S. persons. Thus, this Working Paper examines the above situation, given the multiple issues and complexities on the case, starting from the very nature of PDVSA as an state-owned entity under Venezuelan law, but with particular emphasis on the creditors’ side of the equation and the theory of fraudulent transfer, which is analyzed both from the standpoint of Venezuelan law, as well as from U.S. insolvency framework and international law in general.

The full working paper is available here.

How to Restructure Venezuelan Debt
by | posted in: International and Comparative, Workouts and Pre-Packs | 0

By Lee C. Buchheit (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP) & G. Mitu Gulati (Duke University School of Law).

There is a growing consensus that Venezuela will not be able to persist for much longer with its policy of full external debt service. The social costs are just too great. This implies a debt restructuring of some kind. Venezuela, principally through its state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (“PDVSA”), has extensive commercial contacts with the United States. Not since Mexico in the 1980s has an emerging market country with this level of commercial contacts attempted to restructure its New York law-governed sovereign debt. Holdout creditors in a restructuring of Venezuelan sovereign debt will therefore present a serious, potentially a debilitating, legal risk. The prime directive for the architects of a restructuring of Venezuelan debt will be to neutralize this risk.

The full article is available here.

Deterring Holdout Creditors in a Restructuring of PDVSA Bonds and Promissory Notes
by | posted in: International and Comparative, Workouts and Pre-Packs | 0

By Lee C. Buchheit (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP) & G. Mitu Gulati (Duke University School of Law).

Probably the main reason why the Maduro administration has not attempted to restructure Venezuelan sovereign debt is the potential mischief that may be caused by holdout creditors. The next administration in Venezuela — whenever and however it may arrive — will not want for suggestions about how to minimize or neutralize this holdout creditor threat. One option, before a generalized debt restructuring of some kind affecting all outstanding bonds, is for Venezuela to acknowledge that there really is only one public sector credit risk in the country and that the distinction between Republic bonds and its state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (“PDVSA”) bonds is artificial, and then to offer to exchange PDVSA bonds for new Republic bonds at par. The question will be, as it always is, how to discourage PDVSA creditors from declining to participate in such an exchange offer.

We suggest that one method might be for PDVSA to pledge all of its assets to the Republic in consideration for the Republic’s assumption of PDVSA’s indebtedness under its outstanding bonds and promissory notes. This is a step expressly permitted by PDVSA’s bonds and promissory notes. Existing PDVSA creditors would be perfectly free to decline to exchange their exposure for new Republic bonds, but they would face the prospect that a senior lienholder (the Republic) would have a first priority claim over any PDVSA assets that the holdout may attempt to attach to satisfy a judgment against PDVSA. That realization should make them think twice about the wisdom of holding out.

The full article is available here.

Selling Innovation in Bankruptcy
by | posted in: 363 Sale, Valuation | 0

By Song Ma (Yale School of Management), (Joy) Tianjiao Tong (Duke University, Fuqua School of Business), and Wei Wang (Queen’s School of Business).

The past decades have witnessed the emergence of patent sales in corporate bankruptcies. Yet we know little about the facts and rationales of these important economic transactions.

In this working paper, we assemble a comprehensive data set of US Chapter 11 filings, USPTO patent transaction documents, and court records on assets sales from the past three decades. We document three stylized facts on patent sales in bankruptcy. First, patent sales are pervasive — more than 40% of bankrupt firms sell at least one patent, and on average they sell 18% of their patent portfolios. Second, patent transactions occur immediately after bankruptcy filing — concentrating largely within the first two quarters after filing. Third, patents are frontloaded in general asset sales in bankruptcy — firms sell a disproportionately large quantity of patents in asset sales during the early period of reorganization.

Why do firms sell patents during bankruptcy? We design a set of empirical tests to study the economic decisions behind patent sales based on the two economic views on assets reallocation in bankruptcy, namely asset restructuring and financing through asset sales. Our results show that bankrupt firms reallocate patents that are more redeployable and trade in a more liquid market . We find no evidence that they sell underexploited or underperforming patents. This pattern of selling more liquid patents holds stronger in firms with financial distress, firms undergoing poor industry conditions, and firms lacking external financing. The combined evidence lends support to the view that firms sell innovation during bankruptcy for financing purposes rather than for asset restructuring. Additionally, we find that bankrupt firms try to retain the inventors of sold patents and continue to cite sold patents after their sale. The evidence overall suggests that a firm’s imminent financing needs interact with its intent to avoid bankruptcy costs in shaping a firm’s decision to sell patents in bankruptcy.

The full paper is available here.

 

The Roundtable will be off for the holidays. We’ll be back early after the New Year.

Venezuela’s Restructuring: A Realistic Framework
by | posted in: International and Comparative, Workouts and Pre-Packs | 0

By Mark A. Walker (Millstein & Co.) and Richard J. Cooper (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, LLP).

Venezuela is confronting an economic and financial crisis of unprecedented proportions.  Its economy remains on a precipitous downward trajectory, national income has more than halved, imports have collapsed, hyperinflation is about to set in, and the government continues to prioritize the payment of external debt over imports of food, medicine and inputs needed to allow production to resume.  Bad policies are complemented by bad news as oil production and prices have declined dramatically from previous highs.  Financially, the country is burdened with an unsustainable level of debt and has lost market access.  Venezuela will be unable to attract the substantial new financing and investment required to reform its economy without a comprehensive restructuring of its external liabilities.

Given this array of problems, Venezuela and its national oil company, PDVSA, face what may be the most complex and challenging sovereign debt restructuring to date.  This paper proposes a framework for restructuring and discusses the key issues that will arise during the restructuring process.  These issues include the vulnerability of PDVSA assets outside Venezuela to actions by creditors (which affects, most importantly, receivables from petroleum sales and PDVSA’s interest in the U.S.-based CITGO); whether the restructuring should be implemented in one or two steps (an immediate restructuring versus the reprofiling of principal payments in the short term); the incentives and disincentives for would-be holdout creditors to join a restructuring; and the admissibility and treatment of various claims (such as PDVSA bonds that may have been originally issued at prices below their par value and claims against PDVSA for services billed at significant premiums to market prices).

The article is available here.

Mark A. Walker is Managing Director and Head of Sovereign Advisory at Millstein & Co.  Richard J. Cooper is a Senior Partner in the Restructuring Group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, LLP.  The views expressed in the article are those of the authors only.

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