In a case closely watched by companies and investors alike, on January 17, 2016, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision of the District Court for the Southern District of New York in Marblegate Asset Management vs. Education Management Corp. The District Court had held that a series of debt restructuring transactions by Education Management Corp. violated Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, as amended. Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act provides that “the right of any holder of any indenture security to receive payment of the principal and interest on such indenture …shall not be impaired or affected without the consent of such holder.” Reading this provision broadly, the District Court found that a restructuring that released a parent guarantee and effectively stripped most of the assets from the issuer of the debt without the consent of each bondholder violated Section 316(b), even though the particular indenture for the bonds in question was not amended in connection with the restructuring. The District Court concluded that Section 316(b) protects a bondholder’s practical ability to receive payment even where the indenture was not explicitly modified. The District Court’s decision, together with another similar decision in the Southern District of New York in the case of Meehancombs Global Opportunities Funds, LP v. Caesers Entertainment Corp., caused significant concern among practitioners that these decisions significantly limited companies’ ability to enter into negotiated debt restructurings without consent of 100% of all indenture bondholders. Because the requirement of 100% approval gives bondholders significant negotiating leverage and creates a real risk of “holdouts,” such a requirement could effectively prevent many debt restructurings outside of a bankruptcy court.
Archives for January 2017
SEC Staff Grants No-Action Request Concurring with Exclusion of Shareholder Proposal On Virtual-Only Annual Meetings
In recent years, an increasing number of companies have opted to hold annual shareholder meetings exclusively online. These annual meetings are commonly referred to as “virtual-only annual meetings”. In a decision critical for companies that currently hold or are contemplating switching to virtual-only annual meetings, the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC Staff”) recently issued a no-action letter permitting a company to exclude a shareholder proposal that objected to virtual-only annual meetings. Specifically, the shareholder proposal requested that the company’s board adopt a policy to initiate or restore in-person annual meetings. The SEC Staff concurred that the proposal could be excluded under Rule 14a-8(i)(7) on the grounds that the decision whether to hold in-person annual meetings is related to the company’s ordinary business operations because the proposal “relates to the determination of whether to hold annual meetings in person.” The SEC Staff’s decision is not yet available on the SEC’s website.