Under U.S. law, for a court to adjudicate a dispute there has to be a provision of law that says the court is allowed to hear that dispute. Under U.S. law, there is a specific set of statutes that says when bankruptcy courts can hear disputes, when companies can be before the bankruptcy courts to reorganize, and when they can have their issues resolved. There is a series of statutes that specify the jurisdiction — the ability of the bankruptcy court to conduct those proceedings. And then there are some specific provisions in the statute that say what type of company can be a Chapter 11 debtor in the United States.
There is a statute that’s very specific and short under the U.S. bankruptcy law — that’s Section 109 — and it says exactly who can be a Chapter 11 debtor and the parameters are extremely broad. And they are unlike the rules in many jurisdictions in foreign courts in that you do not need to be a United States company in order to be in a U.S. Chapter 11 court and have the court oversee the restructuring of your finances and your operations. Quite simply, the rules are very succinct. If you are a company that is domiciled in the U.S., or if you are a company that has a place of business in the U.S., or if you simply have assets in the United States, you are eligible — generally speaking — to be a Chapter 11 debtor.
There is no particular threshold or minimum amount of assets to qualify for that rule of having assets in the United States to be a Chapter 11 debtor. I think people will be sometimes surprised to hear that somewhat small amounts of money — even things like dollars in your lawyer’s retainer in the United States — can technically qualify as assets in the United States to be a Chapter 11 debtor.
https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/foreign-based-companies-considering-a-us-chapter-11
