Asia Pacific

Former Hanover director Mark Hotchin has had his New Zealand assets frozen by order of the High Court, on application from the Securities Commission, The National Business Review reported. A Securities Commission statement said the application was granted without notice to Mr Hotchin on Friday. Mr Hotchin intended to apply to revoke these orders, the statement said. A hearing is expected in February 2011.

Vietnam's beleaguered state-run shipbuilding company does not have enough money to make a $60 million loan payment next week, and has asked foreign creditors for more time to pay, state-run media reported Tuesday. Nguyen Ngoc Su, chair of the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, is quoted in the online newspaper VietnamNet as saying that he informed creditors on Dec. 10 that it will be impossible for the company to make the first repayment of principal due Dec. 20 on a $600 million loan from a group of creditors led by Credit Suisse.

The lawyer for controversial businesswoman May Wang was back in court today seeking to have her bankruptcy suspended ahead of her fight to have it revoked, The New Zealand Herald reported. Wang, the front person for a group of Chinese investors seeking to buy $1.5 billion of New Zealand dairy farms, was last week ruled bankrupt at the High Court in Auckland. The court also turned down a proposal to repay 6c in the dollar to creditors who were owed $22 million following the collapse of Wang's hotel and property business Dynasty Group.

The New Zealand company that operates the coal mine where 29 miners died in a series of explosions last month said Monday it has been placed into receivership, Bloomberg reported on an Associated Press story. Pike River Coal Ltd chairman John Dow said that the largest shareholder, NZ Oil & Gas, appointed accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers as receivers. The coal miner is expected to announce mass redundancies on Tuesday among its 180-strong work force. The first major methane-fueled explosion ripped through the mine on Nov.

The Serious Fraud Office has arrested and laid six Crimes Act charges against one current and one former director of failed finance company Capital + Merchant in relation to $14.5 million worth of related party lending dating back to 2002, BusinessDay.co.nz reported. The two men charged at Neal Nicholls and Wayne Douglas, the founding directors and beneficial owners of the company which went into receivership in November 207 owing 7000 investors $167 million. Nicholls remained as a director until the company went under but Douglas had resigned a few months earlier in February of that year.

May Wang is set to appeal a bankruptcy ruling over a $22 million debt, while the company she is fronting considers whether it will proceed with its bid to purchase the Crafar farms, The New Zealand Herald reported. Ms Wang lost her year-long battle with Westpac at the High Court at Auckland yesterday, leaving the future of the deal between Hong Kong-listed company Natural Dairy and the New Zealand-based UBNZ group hanging in the balance. Ms Wang is the director and sole shareholder of UBNZ's trustee.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will make an arrest tomorrow in a case that involves tens of millions of dollars of investor losses, The National Business Review reported. News of the arrest came as SFO chief executive Adam Feeley appeared before Parliament's Law and Order select committee. Asked to explain how the SFO pursues its investigations and uses other organisations and contractors, he dramatically gave the arrest tomorrow as an example.

Bahrain's Awal Bank BSC is withdrawing its request to withhold financial details and now plans to comply with Chapter 11 disclosure requirements, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Awal's U.K.-based administrator had previously asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan for permission to follow the protocol of reorganizations in Bahrain, allowing the company to withhold information typically made public in U.S. cases, such as the exact amounts owed to the 20 largest creditors. Bahraini authorities placed Awal into administration in July 2009.

Fast food franchise Souvlaki Hut has been placed into voluntary administration, despite being named as one of the fastest growing franchises in Australia just 10 months ago, StartupSmart.com.au reported. Souvlaki Hut ranked third on the 2010 BRW Fast Franchise list, with revenue of $17.36 million and growth of 217.89%. But Laurie Fitzgerald from BDO Australia, who has been appointed as the company’s administrator, says poor retail sales, threats of litigation and disgruntled franchisees led to its demise.

A unit of HSBC Holdings PLC is protesting an attempt by Bahrain's Awal Bank BSC to pursue Chapter 11 protection in the U.S., saying Awal is seeking to cherry-pick the portions of the Bankruptcy Code it would like to use while ignoring other aspects of the law, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. HSBC Bank USA, which claims to be among Awal's largest creditors, said the Bahrain bank is trying to take advantage of U.S. laws in an attempt to claw back an errant $13 million wire transfer.