The Irish High Court recently approved the proposed scheme of arrangement for the restructure of the Norwegian Air Group.

This is the second successful airline restructure in Ireland through the use of Examinership legislation following the successful scheme presented by CityJet DAC in 2020.

The verdict from the Irish High Court was reached following meetings with the company’s creditors, whereby a large majority voted in favour of the process.
While the scheme has been approved in Ireland, the parent Company of the Group (Norwegian Air Shuttle (“NAS”)) also requires approval from the Norwegian Courts where a parallel process was undertaken in Norway following the commencement of Irish Court protection.

A similar voting process will now take place with the creditors in the Norwegian reconstruction during the next 14 days, prior to the final ruling from the Norwegian Court.

In the event the voting process in Norway on the NAS restructuring is approved, the Company will move forward with the Capital Raise commencing in April and target closing the overall restructure process in May 2021.

We have previously outlined the various restructuring options available in Ireland to the aviation sector and given the strong links Ireland has to the sector, it is encouraging to see another successful restructuring process approved by the Irish High Court.

This brings to total a number of three significant restructuring plans in the sector, with Nordic Aviation DAC also using the Part 9 Scheme of Arrangement in 2020 to implement a multi-jurisdictional restructure of its debt profile, as the Company navigates its way through a turbulent time in the leasing sector.

Our restructuring services team have advised key stakeholders in each of these processes having provided the Independent Experts Report for both CityJet DAC and the Norwegian group as part of their respective petitions to seek Court protection, while we also supported a group of lenders in the scheme of arrangement presented by Nordic DAC.