In re Ascot Fund Ltd.

Ascot Fund Ltd. (debtor) was an investment fund organized under Cayman Islands law, with a registered address in the Cayman Islands, board members who were based in the Cayman Islands, and a sole voting shareholder that was a Cayman entity. Ascot Fund’s other shareholders were located around the world. Ascot Fund invested its assets in a Delaware limited partnership, Ascot Partners LP, which in turn invested all its assets in Bernard Madoff’s infamous investment company. When Madoff’s Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008, Ascot Partners and Ascot Fund lost their investments. Litigation ensued, and Ascot Partners and Ascot Fund eventually reached a settlement with the liquidation trustee for Madoff’s company. Ascot Partners received millions of dollars to distribute to its investors, including Ascot Fund and Ascot Fund’s shareholders. In 2019, Ascot Fund entered a voluntary liquidation proceeding in the Cayman Islands. The liquidators notified Ascot Fund’s shareholders about the Madoff distribution and explained that the liquidation would be brought under the supervision of a Cayman court. One of the liquidators then filed a petition in a US bankruptcy court under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, seeking recognition of the Cayman liquidation as a foreign main proceeding. One Ascot Fund investor objected, asserting that the Cayman liquidation could not be recognized as the main proceeding because Ascot Fund’s center of main interests (COMI) was not in the Cayman Islands.