Regional news: Africa & Middle East

A Kuwaiti telecoms company may finally serve a two-year-old English bankruptcy petition on a Saudi prince, after the High Court reasoned the prince’s name being registered for council tax in London meant he had a place of residence there.

05 April 2022

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Norton Rose Fulbright have helped agricultural commodities trader ED&F Man complete its restructuring featuring a Part 26A plan; while a court in Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone has sealed Middle Eastern healthcare group NMC’s US$7.6 billion restructuring, by affirming the first judicial reorganisation in the UAE through an administration.

01 April 2022

Mauritius-registered telecoms group Smile Holdings has won sanction of its restructuring plan, after the English High Court found it had jurisdiction to alter the constitution and share capital of the company without the need for a parallel plan in its place of incorporation.

30 March 2022

UK-based NMC Health’s English administrators have obtained what is believed to be the first ever recognition decision from a court in Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone, as the UAE administrators of the beleaguered healthcare group’s operating companies made a landmark announcement that they would exit administration before the end of the month.

18 March 2022

Two companies that own real estate in Israel have been discharged from receivership in the British Virgin Islands after a local court found the Israeli lawyer who made the application failed in her duty of disclosure.

11 March 2022

African telecoms group Smile Telecoms has asked the High Court in London to sanction its second restructuring plan in a year, arguing the plan is likely to be effective in its key jurisdictions of Mauritius, Nigeria and South Africa.

10 March 2022

The Israeli foreign representative of Canadian property group Urbancorp will not be able to appeal failed claims based on the common law anti-deprivation rule, so the value of a 50-year land lease could remain in the debtor’s estate for creditors rather than benefitting the group’s controlling family.

04 March 2022

Limiting US recognition to proceedings featuring those who qualify as “debtors” under section 109 of the US Bankruptcy Code would be inconsistent with the language and purpose of Chapter 15, a Florida district court has ruled, departing from the Second Circuit's much-criticised Barnet decision.

02 March 2022

A senior lender to African telecoms group Smile Telecoms has raised last-minute valuation issues with the company’s restructuring plan, despite the English High Court finding it was out of the money last month.

28 February 2022

A court in the Dubai International Financial Centre, which recently signed up to the UNCITRAL Model Law, has refused to recognise the Abu Dhabi personal bankruptcy proceedings of the chairman of investment group KBBO, criticising his trustees.

16 February 2022