In King v PFL Finance Limited & Anor [2015] NZCA 517, the Kings, a husband and wife team of farmers, arranged finance from PFL Finance Limited but the loan went into default.  PFL served PLA notices but failed to serve the Kings as guarantors.  A receiver was appointed to the farming operation, who determined to cease trading the day after his appointment.

In Madsen-Ries v Rapid Construction Ltd [2013] NZCA 489, the Court of Appeal considered an appeal concerning a liquidator's attempt to have a payment set aside. 

The UK Supreme Court recently considered the scope of the following tests for whether a company is unable to pay its debts (as set out in section 123(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986):

• The company is unable to pay its debts as they fall due (the "cash-flow test") and
• The value of a company's assets is less than the amount of its liabilities, taking into account its contingent and prospective liabilities (the "balance-sheet test").

The Supreme Court confirmed that:

In Grant v Independent Livestock 2010 Limited [2012] NZHC 3458, the liquidators of ILA sought to hold the sole director of ILA and IL2010 (a company to which ILA's assets had been transferred) liable for debts incurred by ILA.

The recent Singapore case of Re Lehman Brothers Finance Asia Pte Ltd (in creditors' voluntary liquidation) determined that the debts of a company in foreign currency, which had been admitted in proof by the liquidators, were to be converted at the exchange rate prevailing at the "resolution date". In this context, resolution date means the day the resolution was passed placing the company into liquidation.

The High Court judgment in Commissioner of Inland Revenue v Livingspace Properties Ltd (in rec and in liq) [2020] NZHC 1434 is another chapter in the continuing, bitter saga between Robert Walker, the liquidator of Livingspace and David Henderson (through his wife as proxy).

The Government has published the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill (the Bill), an omnibus bill containing amendments (both temporary and permanent) to several acts. These amendments aim to both assist organisations in effectively managing the “immediate impacts of the response to COVID-19”, as well as mitigating some of the pandemic’s “unnecessary and potentially longer-term impacts on society”.

Mr Hampton was adjudicated bankrupt five years previously.  Following his public examination and the filing of the Official Assignee's report, the Official Assignee and Commissioner of Inland Revenue (a creditor) accepted Mr Hampton should be discharged, but sought the imposition of conditions. 

We previously reported on the Court of Appeal decision in Trends Publishing International Ltd v Advicewise People Ltd & Ors. The case concerned a compromise under Part 14 of the Companies Act 1993 that was set aside by the High Court on the basis that the challenging creditors, who had voted against the compromise, had been unfairly prejudiced by the decision to call only one meeting of creditors.

The English Court of Appeal has recently decided that a corporation that held shares in a company remained a shareholder notwithstanding the shareholding company's dissolution.

BWE Estates Limited had two shareholders: an individual named David who held 75% of its shares and a company, Belvedere Limited, which held the remaining 25%. Although Belvedere was dissolved in 1996, it remained listed as a shareholder in BWE's share register.