Source: https://www.jonesday.com/debate-intensifies-as-to-whether-the-bankruptcy-codes-avoidance-provisions-apply-extraterritorially-04-17-2018/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 20:56:30+00:00

Document:
The ability of a trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. Several bankruptcy courts have addressed this issue in recent years, with inconsistent results.
In a recent example, in In re CIL Limited, 2018 WL 329893 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2018), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, disagreeing with other courts both within and outside its own district, ruled that the "transfer of an equity interest in a U.K. entity to a Marshall Islands entity was a foreign transfer" and that the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions do not apply extraterritorially because "[n]othing in the language of sections 544, 548 and 550 of the Bankruptcy Code suggests that Congress intended those provisions to apply to foreign transfers."
"It is a longstanding principle of American law ‘that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.’ " EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244, 248 (1991) (quoting Foley Bros. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281, 285 (1949)). This "presumption against extraterritoriality" is a judicially developed rule of statutory construction whereby federal law is presumed not to apply to conduct or property outside the United States "unless a contrary intent appears." Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 255 (2010). In Smith v. United States, 507 U.S. 197, 204 n.5 (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court explained that this presumption is at least partially "the commonsense notion that Congress generally legislates with domestic concerns in mind." The presumption also "serves to protect against unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord." Arabian American, 499 U.S. at 248 (citing McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional de Marineros de Honduras, 372 U.S. 10, 20–22 (1963)).
Contrary intent is shown through "clear evidence," in either the statutory text or the "legislative purpose underlying it." Id. at 204. However, a law need not explicitly state that "this law applies abroad" to have extraterritorial effect, and context is relevant to infer the statute’s meaning. Morrison, 561 U.S. at 255.
In Morrison and RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Cmty., 136 S. Ct. 2090 (2010), the Supreme Court outlined a two-step approach to determining whether the presumption against extraterritoriality forecloses a claim. First, the court examines "whether the presumption against extraterritoriality has been rebutted—that is, whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially." Nabisco, 136 S. Ct. at 2101; accord Morrison, 561 U.S. at 255. If the conclusion is that the presumption has been rebutted, the inquiry ends.
If it has not been rebutted, the court must determine whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute by examining its "focus." If the conduct relevant to that focus occurred in the U.S., "the case involves a permissible domestic application even if other conduct occurred abroad." Nabisco, 136 S. Ct. at 2101; accord Morrison, 561 U.S. at 266–67. However, if the conduct relevant to the focus of the statute did not occur in the U.S., "the case involves an impermissible extraterritorial application regardless of any other conduct that occurred in U.S. territory." Id.; accord Societe Generale plc v. Maxwell Commc’n Corp. plc (In re Maxwell Commc’n Corp. plc), 186 B.R. 807, 816 (S.D.N.Y. 1995) ("Maxwell I"), aff’d on other grounds, 93 F.3d 1036 (2d Cir. 1996) ("Maxwell II").
In certain respects, U.S. bankruptcy law has explicitly applied extraterritorially for more than 60 years. In 1952, due to confusion about the scope of a debtor’s property to be administered by a bankruptcy trustee under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, Congress inserted the phrase "wherever located" into section 70a of the act "to make clear that a trustee in bankruptcy is vested with the title of the bankrupt in property which is located without, as well as within, the United States." H.R. Rep. No. 82-2320, at 15 (1952), reprinted in 1952 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1960, 1976; see also Pub. L. No. 82-456, 66 Stat. 420 (July 7, 1952). This language was preserved in section 541(a) of the Bankruptcy Code (enacted in 1978), which states that the bankruptcy estate includes the debtor’s property "wherever located and by whomever held." Section 541(a) provides further that such property includes various "interests" of the debtor in property. Similarly, 28 U.S.C. § 1334(e) gives federal district courts—and, by jurisdictional grant pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 157(a), bankruptcy courts within each district—exclusive jurisdiction of all property of the debtor and its estate, "wherever located."
However, the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code permitting avoidance and recovery of preferential or fraudulent transfers—i.e., sections 544, 547, 548, and 550—do not expressly refer to "property of the estate" as that term is defined in section 541 or even to section 541 itself. Instead, section 544 permits the trustee to avoid certain transfers of "property of the debtor" or interests of the "debtor in property"; sections 547(b) and 548(a)(1) provide for the avoidance of "an interest of the debtor in property"; and section 550 permits the trustee to recover "the property transferred" or its value from the transferee.
Furthermore, some courts, noting that section 541(a)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that any "interest in property that the trustee recovers under section . . . 550" is part of the estate, have concluded that fraudulently or preferentially transferred property is not estate property unless and until it is recovered by the trustee. See, e.g., FDIC v. Hirsch (In re Colonial Realty Co.), 980 F.2d 125 (2d Cir. 1992) (if property that has been fraudulently transferred is included in "property of the estate" under section 541(a)(1), section 541(a)(3) is rendered meaningless with respect to property recovered pursuant to fraudulent transfer actions); accord Rajala v. Gardner, 709 F.3d 1031 (10th Cir. 2013). But see Am. Nat’l Bank of Austin v. MortgageAmerica Corp. (In re MortgageAmerica Corp.), 714 F.2d 1266, 1277 (5th Cir. 1983) ("[p]roperty fraudulently conveyed and recoverable under the Texas Fraudulent Transfers Act remains, despite the purported transfer, property of the estate within the meaning of section 541(a)(1)").
Prior to Morrison, the courts in Maxwell I, Maxwell II, French, and Barclay v. Swiss Fin. Corp. Ltd. (In re Bankr. Estate of Midland Euro Exch. Inc.), 347 B.R. 708 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2006), adopted differing approaches in determining whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially. In Maxwell I, the district court ruled that Congress did not clearly express its intention, in statutory language or elsewhere, for section 547 to empower a trustee to avoid foreign preferential transfers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, but on the separate basis that, under principles of international comity, the U.S. court must defer to the courts and laws of the U.K., and U.S. avoidance and recovery provisions should not apply to the transfers at issue. See Maxwell II, 93 F.3d at 1054–55.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held to the contrary in French. Agreeing with an argument rejected in Maxwell I, the Fourth Circuit held that it need not decide whether the transfer of a Bahamian residence was extraterritorial because "Congress made manifest its intent that § 548 apply to all property that, absent a prepetition transfer, would have been property of the estate, wherever that property is located." By incorporating the language of section 541 to define what property a trustee may recover, the Fourth Circuit wrote, section 548 "plainly allows a trustee to avoid any transfer of property that would have been ‘property of the estate’ prior to the transfer in question—as defined by § 541—even if that property is not ‘property of the estate’ now."
According to the Supreme Court in Begier, "property of the debtor," the transfer of which is subject to avoidance under section 547(b), "is best understood as that property that would have been part of the estate had it not been transferred" pre-bankruptcy. Id. at 58–59. The Court looked for guidance to section 541. In delineating the scope of "property of the estate," the Court wrote, section 541 "serves as the postpetition analog to § 547(b)’s ‘property of the debtor.’ " Id. It ruled that because property held by the debtor in trust is neither "property of the estate" under section 541 nor "property of the debtor" for purposes of section 547(b), a chapter 7 trustee could not avoid a transfer of such property held in trust as a preference.
In Midland Euro, the bankruptcy court considered whether section 548 could be used to avoid a transfer of funds by a Barbados corporation to an English company from an English bank through a U.S. bank to another English bank. Stating that in French, the Fourth Circuit "totally ignores § 541(a)(3) and uses an unclear and convoluted method to reach its conclusion," the Midland Euro court ruled that it could "find no basis for holding that Congress intended the trustee’s avoiding powers to apply extraterritorially." 347 B.R. at 719. The court also held that allegedly fraudulent transfers do not become property of the estate until they are avoided.
Since the Supreme Court outlined its two-step approach on extraterritorial application of statutes in Morrison, several courts have undertaken to apply that approach to the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance and recovery provisions. In Picard v. Bureau of Labor Ins. (In re Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec. LLC), 480 B.R. 501 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2012) ("BLI"), the bankruptcy court applied the two-step analysis required by Morrison to determine whether a trustee could recover redemption payments under section 550 that were made to the New York and London accounts of a Taiwanese entity. The court ruled that, because the initial transfers of the debtor’s assets had occurred in New York, the trustee was not seeking extraterritorial application of section 550. The court also concluded in dicta that "Congress demonstrated its clear intent for the extraterritorial application of Section 550 through interweaving terminology and cross-references to relevant Code provisions," including sections 541 and 548 and 28 U.S.C. § 1334(e)(1). Id. at 527. According to the court, "[T]he concepts of ‘property of the estate’ and ‘property of the debtor’ are the same, separated only by time." Id.
In Weisfelner v. Blavatnik (In re Lyondell), 543 B.R. 127 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2016), the bankruptcy court refused to grant a motion to dismiss a claim seeking avoidance of a fraudulent transfer under section 548 on the ground that the challenged transfer occurred outside the U.S. The court reasoned that Congress could not have intended to exclude extraterritorial transfers from avoidance under section 548 while explicitly defining "property of the bankruptcy estate" under section 541 to include all of the debtor’s property "wherever located and by whomever held."
Persuaded by the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning in French, the court distinguished the case before it from Colonial Realty. In Colonial Realty, the Lyondell court explained, the Second Circuit’s recognition that sections 541(a)(1) and (a)(3) "were speaking as of different times" fell "far short of holding that property not in the estate as of the commencement of the case cannot be brought into the estate because it is in a foreign locale." The Lyondell court held that Congress could not have intended for property anywhere in the world to enter the bankruptcy estate once recovered pursuant to the avoidance powers while simultaneously not intending for such powers to reach anywhere in the world.
In Spizz v. Goldfarb Seligman & Co. (In re Ampal-Am. Israel Corp.), 562 B.R. 601 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2017), the bankruptcy court agreed with Madoff and Maxwell I that the avoidance provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, including section 547(b), do not apply extraterritorially. According to the court, "Property transferred to a third party prior to bankruptcy . . . is neither property of the estate nor property of the debtor at the time the bankruptcy case is commenced, the only two categories of property mentioned in Bankruptcy Code § 541(a)(1)." The court also wrote that "the Begier Court’s conclusion that ‘property of the debtor’ is best understood as property that would have become ‘property of the estate’ but for the transfer does not support the French and BLI courts’ interpretation of section 548." In Begier, the court explained, the Supreme Court read section 541(a) "as a limitation on the trustee’s avoiding powers, not as an expansion of those powers."
The Ampal-American court noted that, although some provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and corresponding jurisdictional statutes, such as section 541(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1334(e)(1), contain clear statements which they apply extraterritorially, section 547 does not—nor, it added in a footnote, does section 548. Because the transfer at issue occurred outside the U.S., the court ruled that it could not be avoided by the trustee.
In In re FAH Liquidating Corp., 572 B.R. 117 (Bankr. D. Del. 2017), prior to filing for chapter 11 protection, the debtor entered into supply agreements with a German corporation headquartered in Munich. The agreements were expressly governed by German law and included a German forum selection clause. A litigation trustee appointed under the debtor’s liquidating chapter 11 plan sued the German corporation to avoid wire transfers made pursuant to the agreements as constructively fraudulent transfers under sections 544, 548, and 550 of the Bankruptcy Code. The German corporation moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the wire transfers were extraterritorial and could not be avoided.
Adopting the reasoning of Lyondell, the FAH Liquidating court found that, although the wire transfers were extraterritorial, the presumption against extraterritoriality did not prevent the trustee’s use of section 548 to avoid the transfers because Congress intended for the provision to apply extraterritorially.
Having concluded that the challenged transfers were extraterritorial, the court ruled that the presumption against extraterritoriality with respect to section 548 was overcome because Congress intended the provision to "reach such foreign transfers." On this point, the FAH Liquidating court agreed with the courts’ reasoning in Lyondell and French.
The court further held that German law, rather than the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, as enacted in either California or Delaware, governed the trustee’s avoidance claims under section 544(b). Because the trustee would not have a remedy to avoid the transfers under section 544(b) if German law applied, the court dismissed the section 544(b) claim.
In Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(C) v. Bahrain Islamic Bank (In re Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(C)), 575 B.R. 229 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2017), and Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(C) v. Tadhamon Capital B.S.C. (In re Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(C), 2017 BL 368397 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Oct. 13, 2017), motion for reconsideration denied, 2018 BL 38409 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Feb. 5, 2018), Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(C) ("Arcapita"), a Bahrain-headquartered investment bank, entered into investment agreements with commercial banks (the "defendants") headquartered in Bahrain and Yemen. The agreements were negotiated and signed in Bahrain and provided that Bahraini law would govern any disputes, with certain exceptions. Arcapita funded the investments by transferring $30 million from its U.S. bank account to U.S. bank accounts maintained by the defendants.
After Arcapita filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the official creditors’ committee sued the defendants, seeking, among other things, to avoid and recover the $30 million in payments as preferential transfers under sections 547 and 550. The defendants moved to dismiss, contending that the avoidance claims were precluded by the "presumption against extraterritoriality."
The bankruptcy court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss because the committee’s claims were either based on domestic conduct—the U.S. bank transfers were at the "heart" of the transactions—or based on statutes that apply extraterritorially. Because the court concluded that the transfers were domestic rather than foreign, the court noted that it "need not resolve whether the avoidance provisions [here, sections 547 and 550] of the Bankruptcy Code apply extraterritorially."
Beginning on April 1, 2013, CEVA Group, CEVA Logistics, and certain related entities entered into a restructuring agreement pursuant to which, among other things, new CEVA Group stock was issued to a newly formed Marshall Islands affiliate of Apollo—CEVA Holdings LLC ("CEVA Holdings")—and CEVA Logistics’ ownership interest in CEVA Group was reduced to 0.01 percent.
The bankruptcy court dismissed the fraudulent transfer claims. Initially, the court found that the transfer at issue was foreign because it involved the transfer of an equity interest in a U.K. entity (CEVA Group) from a Cayman Islands entity (the debtor) to a Marshall Islands entity (CEVA Holdings). The court rejected the chapter 7 trustee’s argument that the "center of gravity" of the challenged transaction was in the U.S., noting that the trustee overstated the significance of the contacts of the defendants (which included Apollo, the officers and director of the debtors and their affiliates, and the companies’ professionals and agents) with the U.S.
Next, the court explained that "Congress has not expressed an affirmative intent for sections 548 and 550 to be applied extraterritorially, and nothing in the text of those sections indicates such an intent." Like the courts in Madoff and Ampal-American, the CIL bankruptcy court concluded that Congress’s failure to do so, "particularly in light of the fact that sections 541(a)(1) and 1334(e) expressly apply extraterritorially, operates to limit sections 548 and 550 to their terms."
In addition, the CIL court agreed with Maxwell I and Madoff that, in assessing the scope of the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions, section 541(a)(1) is irrelevant because property that is the subject of avoidance litigation does not become "property of the estate" unless and until it is recovered. Like the court in Lyondell, the CIL court acknowledged that the application of section 541(a)(3) (designating interests in recovered property as estate property) "might be viewed as to give rise to a ‘timing’ problem." Even so, the CIL court ruled, Congress has not "clearly expressed" that sections 548 and 550 apply extraterritorially.
The court also held that section 544(b), which permits a trustee to bring avoidance actions available to creditors under "applicable law" (here, New York State, U.K., and Cayman Islands law), cannot be used to avoid foreign transfers. The court rejected the chapter 7 trustee’s argument that, by means of section 544(b), he was attempting not "an ‘extraterritorial’ exportation of U.S. law[,]" but to bring foreign law into a U.S. bankruptcy case. The court wrote that it was "not persuaded that the inclusion of the phrase ‘voidable under applicable law’ gives section 544(b) de facto extraterritorial application."
Finally, the court held that, by application of the principles of international comity, Cayman Islands law applied to the avoidance claims. However, the bankruptcy court also ruled that due to, among other things, practical concerns regarding the chapter 7 trustee’s ability to bring avoidance claims in the Cayman Islands (whose law does not recognize constructively fraudulent transfers), the court would adjudicate the trustee’s intentional fraud claim under Cayman Islands law, but "divorced of any aspect of the Bankruptcy Code."
As things stand, the courts in CIL, Ampal-American, Madoff, Midland Euro, and Maxwell I have ruled that the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions do not apply extraterritorially. The courts in FAH Liquidating, Lyondell, BLI, and French—the last being the only circuit court of appeals decision on this issue—have ruled to the contrary. The bankruptcy court in Arcapita Bank skirted the issue.
Nevertheless, relatively few countries have avoidance laws as comprehensive and well-developed as those in the U.S. This means that non-U.S. transferees in many cases face less avoidance liability exposure than if they were subject to U.S. law.
Failing congressional action, the Second Circuit could resolve the uncertainty on this issue at least in the Southern District of New York by definitively ruling one way or another. However, even if the Second Circuit were to hold that the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially, practical problems would remain. For example, a U.S. court may lack personal jurisdiction over a non-U.S. transferee, a fact that would significantly complicate efforts to enforce any avoidance ruling. See Lyondell, 543 B.R. at 147 (concluding that a litigation trustee in a chapter 11 case failed to make a prima facie case for the court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction consistent with due process over a foreign transferee in avoidance litigation).

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