The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act Becomes Law – With Major Enhancements

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By voice vote on March 27, the House of Representatives passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the “Act”), a version of which the Senate passed on a 96-0 vote two days earlier. President Trump promptly signed the Act into law. The Act includes significant amendments to the Senate bill resulting from legislative negotiations that took place since we last analyzed it here. The final version of the Act increases funding for loans to small and large businesses, increases oversight on the Department of the Treasury’s loans and grants to businesses, and adds funding for struggling state, tribal and local governments, individuals and healthcare providers. We summarize key changes here.

Congress Has Passed Phase III of the Federal Coronavirus Relief Legislation: Here’s What You Need to Know about the Legislation’s COVID-19-related Small Business Administration Loan Resources

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The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – the third phase of Congress’s response to COVID-19, which was enacted on March 27, 2020 – includes a Paycheck Protection Program. The proposed program would, among other things, expand the scope of the Small Business Administration’s available 7(a) loans during a “covered period” beginning on February 15, 2020 and ending on June 30, 2020. (The Small Business Administration (SBA) provides 7(a) loan guarantees for certain loans made by participating lending institutions to qualifying small businesses.) Certain key elements of the Paycheck Protection Program are described here, followed by a discussion of various other SBA loan resources. The final version of the bill reflects substantial changes from the version introduced into the Senate on March 19, 2020.

CARES Act Inches Closer, but Terms for Economic Relief Still Uncertain

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When we last wrote, we advised that the CARES Act’s provisions granting extraordinary power to the Secretary of the Treasury to determine those businesses’ eligible for financial relief without legislative oversight was likely to be a significant point of contention during legislative negotiations over approval of the Senate Bill. Our prediction proved correct, with passage of the Bill being delayed for several days through procedural measures. Recent reports have indicated that Secretary Mnuchin has agreed to strict legislative oversight over his authority to designate eligible businesses entitled to receive funding, which has increased in the aggregate from $150 billion to $500 billion in aid for corporations and municipalities. The agreement purportedly also includes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for hospitals – a significant increase from the Bill’s initial allocation. Read our key takeaways here.

What You Need to Know About Proposed and Existing COVID-19-related Small Business Administration Loan Resources

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The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – which was introduced into the Senate on March 19, 2020, as the third phase of Congress’s response to COVID-19 – includes a Small Business Interruption Loan program. The proposed program would, among other things, expand the scope of the Small Business Administration’s available 7(a) loan guarantees during a “covered period” beginning on March 1, 2020 and ending on December 31, 2020. (The Small Business Administration (SBA) provides 7(a) loan guarantees for certain loans made by participating lending institutions to qualifying small businesses.) Read our key takeaways here.

What You Need to Know About the Proposed Senate Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act

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The goal of the trillion-dollar Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) introduced yesterday in the Senate is the quick distribution of cash to individuals, small businesses and critical economic sectors such as the airline industry, providing financial assistance to students, expediting coronavirus testing and easing shortages of medical supplies and personnel. While the bill as drafted has met with resistance from Democratic leaders, we expect a version of this bill to be enacted soon. The CARES Act is 247 pages long and seeks to address many critical problems. We summarize below some key provisions here.

Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Chapter 15 Appeal by Purported Shareholder on Standing Grounds

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In a March 19, 2019 summary order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a purported shareholder’s appeal challenging the chapter 15 recognition of a Cayman Islands restructuring of an offshore drilling contractor. See In re Ocean Rig UDW Inc., No. 18-1374, 2019 WL 1276205 (2d Cir. Mar. 19, 2019). The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of that appeal for lack of appellate standing. An Orrick team handled the chapter 15 proceedings in the bankruptcy court, as well as the appellate proceedings in the district court and Court of Appeals.

Background

The appeal was brought by a self-described shareholder of debtor Ocean Rig UDW Inc. (“UDW”). The appellant sought review of an order issued by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn granting recognition of provisional liquidation and scheme of arrangement proceedings in the Cayman Islands of UDW and three of its subsidiaries as “foreign main proceedings” under section 1517 of the Bankruptcy Code. That recognition order gave rise to various forms of relief, including an automatic stay with respect to the Debtors and their property within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

In the ancillary proceedings in the bankruptcy court, the appellant had opposed the Debtors’ petition for recognition on numerous grounds, including on the basis that venue was improper in the Southern District of New York, that the Debtors failed to meet their burden of proving that their center of main interests (“COMI”) was in the Cayman Islands, that the Debtors improperly manipulated their COMI, and that granting recognition would violate the public policy objectives of chapter 15. The bankruptcy court overruled those objections and granted recognition and other related relief under sections 1520 and 1521 of the Bankruptcy Code. See In re Ocean Rig UDW Inc., 570 B.R. 687 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2017).

Appellant timely noticed an appeal to the district court, but did not seek a stay of the recognition order. Thus, the Debtors moved forward with their restructuring via four interrelated schemes of arrangement under Cayman Islands law (the “Schemes”). The Schemes involved the exchange of more than $3.7 billion of existing financial indebtedness for $450 million in new secured debt, approximately $288 million in cash, and new equity in UDW. Under the Schemes, existing shareholders of UDW retained a nominal amount of equity in the reorganized UDW (0.02%), but this token amount was provided solely to facilitate UDW’s ability to maintain its NASDAQ listing and was not an indication of UDW’s solvency. In fact, the indicative value of the consideration distributed to the creditors under the Schemes was significantly less than the face amount of their claims.

Appellant did not object to the provisional liquidation proceedings or the Schemes, which were later sanctioned (i.e., approved) by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands. Similarly, appellant did not object to a motion in the chapter 15 proceedings for entry of an order granting comity and giving full force and effect to the Schemes and Cayman court’s ruling in the United States, which the bankruptcy court subsequently granted. Promptly upon the bankruptcy court’s issuance of this “enforcement order,” the Debtors consummated the restructuring in accordance with the Schemes.

Thereafter, in the district court, before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, the Debtors and their authorized foreign representative moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that the appellant’s purported shareholder status was insufficient to give her appellate standing, and that in any event, her appeal had been rendered equitably moot by the consummation of the restructuring. The district court granted the motion on both alternative grounds. See In re Ocean Rig UDW Inc., 585 B.R. 31 (S.D.N.Y. 2018).

Appellant then sought review of the district court’s dismissal in the Second Circuit. While that appeal was pending, a third-party company (Transocean Ltd.) acquired UDW in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $2.7 billion.

The Second Circuit’s Ruling

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the appeal for lack of standing. The Court of Appeals began its analysis by reiterating the settled legal standard for bankruptcy appellate standing: “To have standing to appeal from a bankruptcy court ruling in this Circuit, an appellant must be an ‘aggrieved person,’ a person directly and adversely affected pecuniarily by the challenged order of the bankruptcy court.” 2019 WL 1276205 at *1 (quoting In re Gucci, 126 F.3d 380, 388 (2d Cir. 1997)). “The stringency of our rule,” the Court explained, “is rooted in a concern that freely granting open‐ended appeals to those persons affected by bankruptcy court orders will sound the death knell of the orderly disposition of bankruptcy matters.” Id.

Applying that standard, the Second Circuit readily concluded that the appellant was not an “aggrieved person.” Although the appellant was subject to injunctions set forth in the bankruptcy court’s recognition order, she had not “pursued any action against UDW that has been stayed because of the injunctive relief, and her brief [did] not identify any action that she plans to pursue.” Id. Relatedly, the Second Circuit noted that the district court had found UDW was significantly insolvent at the time the Debtors initiated the Cayman proceedings, a finding which appellant had not challenged. Because Cayman Islands law provides that creditors must be made whole before shareholders can recover in a “winding up” proceeding, the Second Circuit concluded that shareholders, including appellant, lacked any pecuniary interest in those proceedings and the U.S. order recognizing those proceedings. Id. (citing Cayman Islands Companies Law § 140(1)).

The Second Circuit also treated as inapposite a prior chapter 15 decision invoked by appellant, Morning Mist Holdings Ltd. v. Krys (In re Fairfield Sentry Ltd.), 714 F.3d 127 (2d Cir. 2013). That decision arose from an appeal brought by shareholders of a feeder fund that invested in the Madoff fraud. The shareholders there challenged the bankruptcy court’s chapter 15 recognition of liquidation proceedings that were ongoing in the British Virgin Islands. But as the Second Circuit’s summary order here explained, standing was not at issue in that case, and the facts were distinguishable. The shareholders in Fairfield Sentry had filed a New York shareholder derivative suit that was stayed as a result of chapter 15 recognition, whereas here, the appellant could not identify any way that recognition caused her to be aggrieved.

The Second Circuit did not explicitly address the district court’s alternative basis for dismissal: i.e., that the consummation of the Debtors’ restructuring, combined with the appellant’s failure to seek a stay, rendered the appeal equitably moot. In re Ocean Rig UDW Inc., 585 B.R. at 39-41. Noting simply that it had considered the appellant’s remaining arguments and concluded that they were without merit, the Court of Appeals did not discuss the appellant’s contention that the equitable mootness doctrine is inapplicable to chapter 15 proceedings. The district court had previously rejected appellant’s arguments that equitable mootness did not apply under chapter 15, concluding that the same “principles of finality and fairness” that pertain to “domestic reorganizations” and the same “concerns of comity” that animated former section 304 of the Bankruptcy Code apply in the chapter 15 context. Id. at 41.

If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed in this opinion, please contact your Orrick attorney or any of the following attorneys:

Evan Hollander

Daniel Rubens

Update to Madoff

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Following our post on the district court’s extraterritoriality decision, the bankruptcy court dismissed the actions against several defendants on the grounds that the presumption against extraterritoriality and international comity principles limit the scope of § 550(a)(2) such that the trustee of a domestic debtor cannot use it to recover property that the debtor transferred to a foreign entity that subsequently transferred it to another foreign entity. However, on February 25, 2019, the Second Circuit disagreed with the bankruptcy court’s decision and vacated the judgement and remanded the matter back to the bankruptcy court for further proceedings. More to come.

 

A Convergence of Insolvency Regimes – Europe in the Brexit Era

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As part of a continued effort in Europe to reform insolvency legislation, the British government issued a paper in March 2018 as a response to a draft directive published by the European Commission in November 2016. The Response proposed highly significant reforms to the current insolvency legislation which–interestingly, in this era of Brexit–if adopted, would bring the British insolvency policies closer in line with the current policies of the European Union. Learn more about the proposed reform from this recent restructuring alert, which breaks down the new proposed restructuring plan, analyzes a possible implementation timeline and compares the potential legislation to the current policies in place in the European Union.

Mutuality – Irrefutable Requirement for Setoff Under Section 553

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Another decision has been issued that reinforces that section 553 does not allow setoff without mutuality, or “triangular setoff.” On November 13, 2018, Judge Gross of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware denied a motion in In re Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. to affect a triangular setoff under section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code due to the lack of mutuality.[1] The Court found that even though a contractual right allowing McKesson Corporation and its subsidiary corporation to affect a prepetition triangular setoff was enforceable under state law, the arrangement did not comport with the strict mutuality required under the Bankruptcy Code.

Section 553

Section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code provides, subject to certain exceptions, that the Bankruptcy Code “does not affect any right of a creditor to offset a mutual debt owing by such creditor to the debtor that arose before the commencement of the case under this title against a claim of such creditor against the debtor that arose before the commencement of the case.” The setoff provision of the Bankruptcy Code does not create right of setoff; it preserves for creditor’s benefit any setoff right that it may have under applicable non-bankruptcy law and imposes additional restrictions that must be met in order for the creditor to impose a setoff against a debtor in bankruptcy.[2] Specifically, the Bankruptcy Code requires that the debts and credits must both have arisen before bankruptcy and that there would be “mutuality” between the debiting and crediting parties.[3] While the Bankruptcy Code does not define “mutuality,”[4] courts interpreting this provision find debts to be mutual only where the debts exist between the “same parties” in the “same capacity.”[5] Mutuality is strictly construed against the party seeking setoff.

Analysis

Here, McKesson sought to effectuate a triangular setoff by offsetting it’s almost $7 million debt to the Debtor against the Debtor’s approximately $9 million debt to McKesson’s subsidiary. McKesson argued that because the Debtor owed its subsidiary in excess of the amount owed to McKesson, section 553(a) enables McKesson to set off the subsidiary’s claim against McKesson’s payment.

The Court’s review of the relevant case law and underlying policies behind section 553 made it clear that “[m]utuality is the lynchpin of setoff under section 553(a).”[6] McKesson did not have a mutual debt under section 553(a) because the debt was owed to its subsidiary – a separate and distinct legal entity. Judge Gross found that McKesson ran into “fatal contrary bankruptcy precedent” that found triangular setoffs to be impermissible under section 553(a) without mutuality.[7] Without such mutuality between McKesson and the Debtor, the Court could not allow the setoff.

Judge Gross further explained that “section 553(a) aligns with the fundamental bankruptcy policy of ensuring similarly-situated creditors receive an equal distribution from the debtor’s estate.” The Court refused to read a contractual exception to the strict mutuality requirement of section 553 because that would create the situation where creditors could receive a greater distribution than other equal-footed creditors and thus dilute the bankruptcy estate to the detriment of all creditors.[8]

McKesson also tried to argue that the subsidiary was a third-party beneficiary under the contract between McKesson and the Debtor, and that the contractual third-party beneficiary doctrine provides the required mutuality.[9] The Court found this argument to be another attempt by McKesson to validate a contractual exception to mutuality. The Court found this “unavailing” because “if there w[as] a contractual third-party beneficiary status exception, parties would merely add language intending that a third-party be a third-party beneficiary of a contract allowing for triangular setoff.” The Court refused to provide an avenue for deliberate circumvention of the Bankruptcy Code.

Takeaways

The decision is another upset for the accessibility of triangular setoffs in bankruptcy. Setoff under section 553 of the Bankruptcy Code requires real mutuality; the Court’s decision makes it abundantly clear that mutuality requires the “same parties” in the “same capacity.” This case supports the trend that parent companies cannot simply argue triangular setoff to mix and match the debits and credits arising from discrete contracts held by the individual entities within its organizational structure.

[1] No. 18-10518 (KG), 2018 Bankr. LEXIS 3579, at *1 (Bankr. D. Del. Nov. 13, 2018).

[2] In re SemCrude, L.P., 399 B.R. 388, 393 (Bankr. D. Del. 2009), aff’d, 428 B.R. 590 (D. Del. 2010).

[3] The Court also discussed how section 553(a) requires the party seeking setoff to be a “creditor.” In re Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 2018 Bankr. LEXIS 3579, at *9. The Court found that McKesson was a creditor only because the parties treated McKesson as a creditor in its’ stipulations; the Court noted that it would not have otherwise deemed McKesson as a creditor because McKesson had paid off its debt to the Debtor, extinguishing its claim. Id.

[4] 5 Collier on Bankr. ¶ 553.03 (16th 2018).

[5] See In re SemCrude, 399 B.R. at 393 (“[T]he authorities are also clear that debts are considered ‘mutual’ only when ‘they are due to and from the same persons in the same capacity.’” (quoting Westinghouse Credit Corp. v. D’Urso, 278 F.3d. 138, 149 (2d Cir. 2002)).

[6] Id. at *24.

[7] In re Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 2018 Bankr. LEXIS 3579, at *9 (citing In re SemCrude, L.P., 399 B.R. 388, 393 (Bankr. D. Del. 2009) and In re Lehman Bros. Inc., 458 B.R. 134, 139 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2011)).

[8] Id.

[9] A third-party beneficiary to a contract is a party who directly or incidentally benefits from a contract between two other parties.

Plaintiffs Cannot Claim Creditor Status Retroactively

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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reminded the plaintiff that standing is “determined as of the commencement of the suit” and post filing claims purchases will not suffice to establish standing. Here, the plaintiff, [also the debtor’s owner], sought to appeal appointment of special counsel. The Bankruptcy Court found that the plaintiff lacked standing to object because he was not a creditor and did not have a stake in the estate and then approved the Trustee’s application to employ SBPC over the improper objection. The plaintiff filed an appeal and then purchased a proof claim in order to obtain creditor status. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the Bankruptcy Court and noted that “[o]nly those directly, adversely and financially impacted by a bankruptcy order may appeal it.” Standing is “determined as of the commencement of the suit and a plaintiff cannot belatedly claim creditor status and establish standing retroactively.”