Jurisdictions involved
Luxembourg, UK
The business and background
The Company was a Luxembourg-based holding/finance company for a Greek Telecom operating company. The Company’s Centre of Main Interests (“COMI”) was relocated from Luxembourg to the UK in August 2009 as part of a restructuring exercise.
What we did
The company was placed into Administration in November 2009 when a pre-pack disposal was completed of the business and assets of the operating subsidiary were affected. This involved rolling over around €1.9 billion of senior debt issued by other group companies, to a “Newco.” However, this still left a further €1.2 billion of subordinated bondholders’ capital plus interest unpaid.
We also identified a post-petition VAT refund as means of funding the initial stage of litigation.
The outcome
With close liaison between our restructuring investigations team, the forensics team, and our VAT expert, and involving notarised affidavits from non-UK-based professionals, the liquidators were able to procure a UK VAT registration for the company. Previously neither the company itself prior to administration, nor the subsequent administrator, and their legal advisers, had been able to achieve this.
We negotiated a seven-figure VAT refund and have ensured litigation is being progressed in a number of jurisdictions.