- Proceedings of a special kind: Statutory health insurers had to agree to the insolvency plan for the start-up as atypical creditors on the customer side
- Gerloff Liebler responsible for complex insolvency law issues in the process
Munich/Hamburg, October 18, 2023 - The law firms Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Frankfurt, and Gerloff Liebler Rechtsanwälte , Munich, have successfully advised Sidekick Health AB on the acquisition of the Hamburg-based start-up aidhere GmbH via an insolvency plan. Sidekick is a global provider of digital therapeutics headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland. aidhere, founded in 2019, offers Digital Health Applications (DiGA), which are digital medical devices such as smartphone apps that help patients treat medical conditions and can be prescribed by doctors on prescription.
aidhere GmbH, which has a good 130 employees, filed for regular insolvency with the Hamburg District Court on May 22, 2023, and the proceedings were opened on August 1, 2023. aidhere had run into financial difficulties because the remuneration paid by the statutory health insurers for DiGA was set significantly lower than previously in arbitration proceedings. The arbitration award also resulted in recoveries from the health insurers in the millions. Although the patients, i.e. the users of the DiGA, are aidhere's end customers, the payments are made by the health insurance funds.
Due to the specifics of the healthcare system, there were unique challenges for investor entry:
- Sidekick's entry via an asset deal was ruled out from the outset, as aidhere's medical licenses could not be transferred to another legal entity without further ado. Therefore, the investor entry had to take place via an insolvency plan.
- In designing the plan and executing the transaction, the difficulty arose, on the one hand, in finding an arrangement to satisfy the health insurers' claims for repayment as appropriately and as quickly as possible in order to obtain their approval of the plan. On the other hand, the arrangement made was not allowed to have a negative impact on aidhere's future business plan.
- In addition, Sidekick had to finance aidhere's business operations in insolvency plan proceedings, which resulted in further legal implications.
Sidekick was advised on the transaction by Morgan Lewis in Frankfurt. Gerloff Liebler was responsible for the insolvency law issues. The insolvency administrator was attorney Dr. Matthias Wolgast (Münzel & Böhm) from Hamburg.
Attorney-at-law Dr. Christian Schmitt, Gerloff Liebler Rechtsanwälte : "From an insolvency law perspective, aidhere's insolvency plan proceedings were fraught with complex issues. This applies in particular to the role of the statutory health insurers as an atypical insolvency creditor on the client side. I am all the more pleased that the start-up was able to become part of the Sidekick Group in the end thanks to the good interaction of all parties involved."
Attorney and Partner Dr. Joachim Heine, Morgan Lewis: "We are pleased to have been able to support Sidekick in this important transaction for its further expansion in Germany. The transaction demonstrates the increasing importance of digital health applications worldwide. The execution of the transaction on the basis of an insolvency plan has helped to secure the future of the company and its employees. We congratulate all parties involved on the success of this complex transaction.
Team Gerloff Liebler
RA Dr. Christian Schmitt (operative mandate processing)
RA Benedikt Gatt (operational handling of mandates)
Attorney and Partner Dr. Christian Gerloff (Supervision)
Team Morgan Lewis
Attorney and Partner Dr. Joachim Heine (Lead Partner)
Attorney Dr. Chloé Lignier
RA Leon Rady
Press contact:
Frank Elsner
Frank Elsner Communication for Business GmbH
Tel.: +49 - 170 48 15 181
Mail: office@elsner-kommunikation.de
About Gerloff Liebler Rechtsanwälte
Gerloff Liebler Rechtsanwälte is a law firm in Munich specializing in insolvency law. The firm's practice focuses on insolvency administration (including plan proceedings and self-administration) as well as other areas of business law advice such as corporate restructuring and out-of-court liquidation proceedings. The firm also has extensive expertise in related areas such as employment law, corporate law and banking law.
The law firm was founded in 1982 by Dr. iur. Wolfgang Ott as an individual law firm and today comprises a team of around 40 employees. For many years, the insolvency specialists Dr. iur. Christian Gerloff, Dr. iur. Marco Liebler and Christian Stoffler have been appointed as insolvency administrators or trustees by several local courts in southern Germany. In the meantime, many hundreds of insolvency proceedings of various sizes have been handled as regular or self-administration proceedings - from medium-sized individual companies to listed groups - in numerous sectors of the economy, often with an international radius.
Among the outstanding insolvency proceedings of recent years were the fashion manufacturers Escada AG/EscadaSE, Rena Lange, Laurèl GmbH as well as Gerry Weber International AG (as CRO), the automotive suppliers Angell-Demmel, Weber Automotive (administrator), Arlington Germany (CRO) and Rüster GmbH (CRO), the specialty chemicals producer SKW Stahl-Metallurgie AG (CRO), the hospital chain Sanitas Group, the Munich-based real estate group Infraplan, the fashion store chains Rudolf Wöhrl AG (CRO), K&L Ruppert and Adler Modemärkte (CRO), and currently real GmbH (CRO).
About Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Morgan Lewis is a global law firm with approximately 2,200 lawyers and other legal advisors in more than 30 locations in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. Morgan Lewis was founded in Philadelphia in 1873 and is represented in Germany with offices in Frankfurt and Munich. The firm advises on all areas of business law, including transactions, corporate, antitrust, employment, finance, tax and dispute resolution.
For more information about Morgan Lewis, visit www.morganlewis.com, as well as LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram.