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Blue Bonds: Making a splash in the Capital Markets
In 2018, the Republic of Seychelles launched the first-ever “blue bond”, with the support of the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility.
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Publication | October 2017
The leading New York case on the impossibility doctrine is Kel Kim Corp. v. Central Markets, 70 N.Y.2d 900 (1987). In that case, plaintiff Kel Kim defaulted on a lease for a roller-skating rink it operated when it was unable to maintain adequate insurance coverage, as required by the lease, due to the liability insurance crisis affecting the United States in the mid- 1980s. Kel Kim sued for a declaratory judgment, declaring that it should be excused from the obligation because performance had been rendered impossible.
The trial court granted summary judgment against Kel Kim, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals then affirmed, agreeing that the impossibility doctrine did not excuse Kel Kim’s nonperformance. The court reasoned that the doctrine is “applied narrowly, due in part to judicial recognition that the purpose of contract law is to allocate the risks that might affect performance and that performance should be excused only in extreme circumstances.” The doctrine applies “only when the destruction of the subject matter of the contract or the means of performance makes performance objectively impossible,” and it did not apply as to Kel Kim because its “inability to procure and maintain requisite coverage could have been foreseen and guarded against when it specifically undertook that obligation in the lease.”
Read the full article: Defenses of impossibility of performance and frustration of purpose
Publication
In 2018, the Republic of Seychelles launched the first-ever “blue bond”, with the support of the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility.
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We are delighted to be participating in Marine Money Week New York 2025. As one of the landmark events for the global shipping finance community, and with the global shipping and maritime industry at such a pivotal juncture, we look forward to catching up with clients and contacts to continue discussions around navigating the current challenges and opportunities.
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On 8 May 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) delivered its ruling in case C-581/23 (the Ruling), providing guidance on one of the conditions for an exclusive distribution agreement to benefit from the block exemption under Article 4(b)(i) of the 2010 Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (the VBER)1, notably the so-called ‘parallel imposition requirement’.
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