Clifford Chance

Codere: The Case for Good Forum Shopping

15 January 2016

In December 2015, the Codere Group obtained the English Court's approval of a scheme of arrangement to implement its long-running EUR1.2 billion financial restructuring. The proposed Scheme had received a level of notoriety having been described by the Court at an earlier hearing as an example of "extreme forum shopping". However, the subsequent sanction hearing demonstrated that, whilst the Scheme had some relatively novel aspects, it was consistent with the English Courts' general wish to assist restructurings, including of foreign groups, particularly in the absence of other viable alternatives. In the present case, a refusal to sanction the scheme could have resulted in a loss of approximately EUR600 million to creditors.

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