Restructuring

To celebrate the one event that affects workplace productivity worldwide, we bring you our World Cup edition of Weil’s Bankruptcy Beach (or, in this case, multitasking while sitting in front of a screen for eight hours) Reading. This week, our Bankruptcy Beach Reading series brings you bankruptcy trivia, with each question relating to one or more countries competing in the 2014 World Cup (even if, as of today, that country has been eliminated from advancing to the Group of 16). Don’t worry if you are one of the few people on the planet who knows nothing about the World Cup or futbol — for the most part, your knowledge of world bankruptcy events should pull you through this challenge. Click on the links to see the answers and find out how many goals you scored.
 1. Which bankruptcy judge shares a last name (and a city) with the MLS’s all-time top scorer? (OK — this one requires just a tiny bit of soccer knowledge. For an easier version of the question, click here.)

1. Answer

2.  What controversial element of Mexican debtor Vitro SAB de CV’s plan led courts in the United States to deny enforcement of the plan in chapter 15?

(a) Nonconsensual third-party releases

(b) Cramdown without an impaired accepting class

(c) Equitable mootness on appeal

(d) Distribution of prepayment premium to undersecured creditor

2. Answer

3.  A group of investors from this country owned a New York chocolate company (that also operated a plant in Fulton, NY that Nestlé had once owned and operated for over 100 years) that filed for chapter 11 in 2010.  The filing was precipitated, in part, when the President of this country dissolved the country’s government.  What was the country, and what was the name of the company?

3. Answer

4. What country’s central bank was one of the creditors that forced Drexel Burnham Lambert Group’s commodities trading subsidiary into an involuntary chapter 7 (which was later converted to chapter 11) in 1990?

4. Answer

5. A virtual currency exchange company became the first bitcoin entity to seek chapter 15 protection in February.  In what country was the foreign main proceeding pending, and what was the name of the company?

5. Answer

6. What company was the first company for which the Italian government wrote special legislation that enabled the company to restructure in an Italian “bankruptcy” proceeding?

6. Answer

7. In this case, the bankruptcy court refused to recognize orders of German and English courts that would have given an insolvency administrator a “wiretap” on email sent to a debtor in a German insolvency proceeding, who had hidden assets and fled the country.  What was the case, and what was the debtor’s occupation?

7. Answer

8. In 2012, this country’s president declared the country’s flagship airline carrier bankrupt and grounded the carrier’s aircraft. Name the country and the airline.

8. Answer

9. Ralph Sweet was the vice chair, shareholder, and manager of a professional soccer club from this country and also a shareholder, officer, director, and manager of this defunct debtor American soccer franchise.

9. Answer

10. Almost as famous now for Sofia Vergara as it is for Juan Valdez, the latter was a major shareholder in this country’s flagship airline, Avianca, which successfully reorganized itself through a chapter 11 case in 2004, many years before chapter 15 became a statutory option.

10. Answer

11. A massive oil company based in this country was famously thwarted in its attempt to use chapter 11 when the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed the case based on the company’s limited ties to the United States.  Name the company and the country.

11 Answer

12. A large electronics manufacturer from this country launched an automobile line just before a financial crisis gripped the region forcing it to eventually put the automotive business into bankruptcy and sell it to an automotive giant from another World Cup country. The company’s cars are still sold today, but only in one country, yet another World Cup country. Name the manufacturer and its country, the automotive giant and its country, and the country in which which cars are still sold today.

12 Answer