London Calling—crossing The Atlantic To Restructure In England?

In the space of less than a year, three Nasdaq-listed companies headquartered in or closely connected to the United States—namely Argo Blockchain, Fossil, and New Fortress Energy—have successfully completed significant restructurings pursuant to the English Restructuring Plan (RP) under Part 26A Companies Act 2006, underscoring the emergence of the RP as a credible option certain U.S. companies may consider for their operational turnarounds and balance sheet restructurings alongside Chapter 11.

In each case, the debtors successfully achieved recognition of their RPs in the United States pursuant to Chapter 15 of the U.S. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court scrutinized the details of the relevant deal to ensure that “forum shopping” was not used to try to “circumvent the requirements of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to disadvantage some creditors”, but was satisfied that was not the case and blessed the RPs with Chapter 15 recognition—even in circumstances where an RP includes elements which would