The Irish High Court has ruled that Norwegian Air International and four Irish subsidiaries can repudiate over 400 contracts related to aircraft leasing. The contracts were deemed no longer relevant to the airline’s scaled-back operation.
In total, the court ruled that Norwegian could abandon 425 contracts with 68 counterparties – mostly related to its now-defunct long-haul services.
All but three of the counterparties either agreed or didn’t challenge the ruling, but arguments made by Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, the Bank of Utah and Citibank and PK Air Finance suggested that the application to repudiate the contracts was made to negotiate better terms.
The group had accumulated debts – including leasing obligations from its fleet of 140 planes – of €4.3 billion.
