News From the BNY Mellon front
posted on
Nov 21, 2017 01:04AM
Crystallex International Corporation is a Canadian-based gold company with a successful record of developing and operating gold mines in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America
Order issued today by Judge Broderick (Southern New York District Court)
STIPULATION: NOW THEREFORE IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED, by and between the undersigned attorneys, subject to the approval of the Court, that: 1. Respondent (BNY Mellon) takes no position with respect to the Motion; and 2. Petitioner (Crysyallex) shall not seek to enforce any order granting the Petition (i.e. order for BNY Mellon to transfer the funds in the Vzla. acct. - estimated at about $35 million) until such time as the Preliminary Injunction in the Mississippi Action has been vacated or otherwise no longer in effect. SO ORDERED. (Signed by Judge Vernon S. Broderick on 11/20/2017) (rj) (Entered: 11/20/2017)
NB: Huntington Ingalls has agreed with Crystallex and BNY Mellon to withdraw the injunction in Huntington's favor issued by the Mississippi court in regards to the payment for the repair of the Venezuelan frigates.
Regarding the other award collection enforcement fronts: nothing has come out from the turnover petitions also in the Southern New York district court after they were approved and delivered to Nomura (for about $700 million of Nomura bonds) and Haitong (for $5 billion face value of Venezuela 2036 bonds, approx, 1.3 billion market value) that Venezuela wanted to sell to pay the principal and interest due in Q4 2017.
As I understand it, the turnover order must be complied with, within 30 days, or opposed if the institution holding the funds / securities is not in a position to realease these due to legal or other constraints (as BNY Mellon did because of the Mississippi court injunction). If the institutions involved are not in direct or indirect possesion of the funds / securities, the order becomes innefective and "dies" without effect.
So, in the Nomura and Haitong cases, since the orders were not opposed within the mandatory 30 days, either they did not have the funds / securities in their possesion, or they turned these over to Crystallex as ordered. The Nomura securities are are "liquid funds", while the Haitong Bonds are not, since they cannot be traded in the USA per the Trump order prohibiting their sale. The Treasury Dept. has the power to allow the sale of the Venezuela bonds affected by the Trump order, on a case by case basis.
In understand that Crystallex has the duty under the CCAA court approved award distribution scheme to use the funds it obtains from the award to pay the stakeholders based on the approved payment waterfall. This applies even if the funds obtained are a portion of the total award. Failure to to this would harm the shareholders, since Crystallex continues to incurr interest expense on the debt to the bondholders and Tenor (DIP funds), which reduces the amount the shareholders will receive as their portion of the award.