Morrison Foerster’s MoFo Restructuring Round-Up provides our analysis of the statutory, regulatory, legal and business-related developments in the insolvency and restructuring world. Our goal is to provide timely, helpful, insightful and digestible content that will help you keep abreast of the trends that are shaping the industry.<h2>MORRISON FOERSTER’S BUSINESS RESTRUCTURING & INSOLVENCY GROUP</h2>We counsel clients around the globe on corporate distress. We advise debtors, creditors, creditors’ committees, ad hoc committees, secured lenders, and specialist investors and are confident in advising on significant multi-jurisdictional cases. The breadth of our practice allows us to find solutions for a broad range of participants in distressed markets and to help them find their way through their most complex issues. We are creative, pragmatic problem solvers and we know the restructuring world well.<h2>ABOUT MORRISON FOERSTER</h2>Morrison Foerster is a leading global law firm that transforms complexity into advantage for its clients. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, banks, consulting and accounting firms, and Fortune 100, technology, and life sciences companies. Highlighting the firm’s commitment to client service, leadership in market-changing deals and impact litigation, and values-based culture, Morrison Foerster has been repeatedly recognized as one of the top 10 firms on The American Lawyer’s A-List. Year after year, the firm receives significant recognition from Chambers and The Legal 500 across their various guides, including Global, USA, Asia‑Pacific, Europe, UK, Latin America, and FinTech Legal. Our lawyers passionately care about delivering legal excellence while living our values. Morrison Foerster has a long-standing commitment to creating a culture that respects and celebrates differences, while providing an inclusive environment. The firm has achieved Mansfield Certification Plus since 2018 as a result of successfully reaching at least 30 percent women, communities of color, and LGBTQ+ lawyer representation in a notable number of current leadership roles and committees. The firm also has a long history of commitment to the community and society through providing pro bono legal services, including litigating for civil rights and civil liberties, improving public education and fostering the wellbeing of children, advocating for veterans, promoting international human rights, enforcing the right to asylum, and safeguarding the environment.

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The Honorable James M. Peck retired from Morrison Foerster upon his appointment as an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court in January 2024. While at Morrison Foerster, Judge Peck chaired Morrison Foerster’s Cross-Border Restructuring practice and also headed the firm’s Mediation practice. Before joining Morrison Foerster, Judge Peck served as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2014, where he presided over the chapter 11 and SIPA cases of Lehman Brothers and its affiliates and a number of other major chapter 11 and chapter 15 cases and wrote multiple legal decisions that have helped define the impact of safe harbors on qualified financial contracts.By invitation, Judge Peck is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a member of the Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance. He is a past president of the International Insolvency Institute, served on the board of governors of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, and was judicial chair of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference. Former Judge Peck currently chairs the Business Bankruptcy Advisory Committee for the Southern District of New York.Judge Peck co-chaired the ABI’s Advisory Committee on the Safe Harbors. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Asian Business Law Institute, is listed as a qualified member of mediation panels maintained by INSOL International, the Singapore Mediation Center, and the Singapore International Mediation Center, and has been included on the Panel of Arbitrators for Financial Services Disputes of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center and the Panel of Arbitrators of the Singapore International Arbitration Center.Judge Peck has been retained on a number of occasions to furnish expert witness statements for submission to the High Court in London regarding issues of New York law, comity, and the recognition of main and non-main insolvency proceedings. He is also a frequent speaker worldwide on insolvency issues and has participated as a keynote speaker and a panel chair around the globe in conferences presented by numerous international organizations and law schools. These include INSOL International, the International Bar Association, INSOL Europe, and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. He has authored articles published in the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal and International Insolvency & Restructuring Report, and is an editor of a recently published book titled The Art of the Ad Hoc.Before his judicial appointment in the Southern District of New York, Judge Peck was in private practice for over 35 years, concentrating much of that time on bankruptcy law, business reorganization, and creditors’ rights.

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The Honorable James M. Peck is head of Morrison Foerster’s Cross-Border Restructuring practice. Before joining Morrison & Foerster, former Judge Peck served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2014. During his judicial service, former Judge Peck presided over the chapter 11 and SIPA cases of Lehman Brothers and its affiliates and a number of other major chapter 11 and chapter 15 cases. As a judge, he has written multiple legal decisions that have helped to define the impact of the safe harbors on qualified financial contracts.

James Peck

Lorenzo is global co-chair of the firm wide Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group. Lorenzo represents debtors, creditors, and creditors’ committees in complex bankruptcy cases, workouts, and litigation. His cases have spanned the United States as well as countless industries, such as airline and cargo transportation, mortgage origination and servicing, retail, banking and finance, energy, oil and gas, and telecommunications.Lorenzo has represented the official committee of unsecured creditors in numerous recent chapter 11 cases, including Peer Street, Incora/Wesco, Clovis Oncology, Valaris, Windstream Holdings, Inc., Cloud Peak Energy, Westmoreland Coal Company, Inc., The NORDAM Group, Inc., Avaya Inc., Armstrong Energy, Inc., 21st Century Oncology Holdings, Inc., Peabody Energy, Inc., Energy Future Holdings, Corp., and UCI International, Inc.Lorenzo’s deep experience and capabilities advising on precedent-setting bankruptcy and restructuring matters have not gone unnoticed. He is listed as a leading lawyer in Chambers USA and has also been recommended by The Legal 500 US. He was also designated by Turnarounds & Workouts magazine as an Outstanding Restructuring Lawyer for his accomplishments in 2016 and 2017.

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Lorenzo is global co-chair of the firmwide Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group. Lorenzo represents debtors, creditors, and creditors’ committees in complex bankruptcy cases, workouts, and litigation. His cases have spanned the United States as well as countless industries, such as airline and cargo transportation, mortgage origination and servicing, retail, banking and finance, energy, oil and gas, and telecommunications.

Lorenzo is global co-chair of the firmwide Business Restructuring & Insolvency Group. Lorenzo represents debtors, creditors, and creditors’ committees in complex bankruptcy cases, workouts, and litigation. His cases have spanned the United States as well as countless industries, such as airline and cargo transportation, mortgage origination and servicing, retail, banking and finance, energy, oil and gas, and telecommunications.

Lorenzo Marinuzzi

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Is the rule in Gibbs justifiable in the context of modern international insolvency laws or is England clinging to an outdated rule simply to keep restructurings here? The rule stems from an 1890 Court of Appeal Case, which holds that only English courts can validate the compromise or discharge of English law governed debt. 

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Substance over Form: How the Rule in Gibbs lives on | MoFo Restructuring Round-Up

Is the rule in Gibbs justifiable in the context of modern international insolvency laws or is England clinging to an outdated rule simply to keep restructurings here? The rule stems from an 1890 Court of Appeal Case, which holds that only English courts can validate the compromise or discharge of English law governed debt. The rule cuts across the trend of increased cross-border cooperation in insolvency matters – commonly described as the “modified universalist” approach and critics see the rule as a relic of a more Anglo-centric approach to insolvency law. This outdated philosophy does not mirror the globalization of commerce and law, and thus arguably contrasts universalism with territorialism.Nonetheless, the rule in Gibbs remains good law, at least in the UK and Hong Kong. There have been international developments; the UNCITRAL Model Law on the Recognition and Enforcement of Insolvency-Related Judgments 2018 (“IRJ Model Law”) complements the 1997 Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (implemented in the UK through the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (CBIR 2006) and adopted by 23 other countries). The UNCITRAL Model Laws make foreign restructurings binding in other jurisdictions that have adopted the model laws. But the scope of the 1997 Model Law is limited in the UK. In the most recent Court of Appeal affirmation of the rule in Gibbs, the 2018 case of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, the court ruled that the UNCITRAL Model Law 1997 (through the CBIR 2006) is merely procedural and cannot interfere with how the Gibbs rule protects substantive English law contract rights.Seemingly, the newer IRJ Model Law (not yet enacted as part of English law) asserts universalism more than territorialism, most notably, perhaps, the rule in Gibbs – i.e., Article 13 of the IRJ Model Law specifically provides that recognition and enforcement of insolvency-related judgments is mandatory. However, in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/implementation-of-two-uncitral-model-laws-on-insolvency/implementation-of-two-uncitral-model-laws-on-insolvency-consultation">recent</a> UK Government Consultation, published on July 7, 2022, on the IRJ Model Law, the UK government sets its face against implementing the IRJ Model Law in full. It has no intention of undermining the Gibbs rule, as it provides “certainty to contracting parties” and makes English law attractive for international use.Application of the Gibbs rule is actually more nuanced than simply not recognizing adjustment of an English governed debt by a non-English court. In a recent Hong Kong judgment of June 6, 2022 after sanctioning a scheme for Rare Earth Magnesium Technology, the Hong Kong courts clarified that the Gibbs rule did not prevent the recognition of a “foreign” insolvency procedure (in this case a U.S. Chapter 15 procedure). Had the foreign scheme purported to compromise substantive legal rights of parties to an agreement, only then would the rule in Gibbs be engaged.Arguably modified universalism may have reached its zenith if it overlooks trusted legal mechanisms. Proponents of the rule in Gibbs argue that parties choose English law to govern their debts because one of the incidents of their choice is that it falls to the English courts to adjudicate changes to those debts. They’re exercising a freedom to contract. While the principle that parties should be able to insist on the law of their choice and the courts of a particular jurisdiction having sole authority to compromise their debt – there’s still a sneaking feeling that this also serves the purpose of forcing international restructuring business to be conducted in the English jurisdiction, and baked into that is an irritating belief in the superiority of the English court. Authored by Howard Morris. Sakshi Rai, London Trainee Solicitor, and Guy Wilcock, a summer intern at the London MoFo office, have contributed to the drafting of this alert.

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