Bill C-97 (the “Bill”) was introduced in Parliament to implement the federal budget tabled by the Liberal government on March 19, 2019. The Bill includes proposed changes to the Canada Business Corporations Act (“CBCA”), the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) and the Companies Creditors’ Arrangements Act (“CCAA”).

A strata wind-up is an excellent way to realize the economic potential of a multi-unit residential property ("strata") by leveraging the value of each strata unit in the strata as a whole to a developer that may want to develop on the strata's property. However, the wind-up process is complex, involving the intersection of real estate, condominium law ("strata property law"), and the law of restructuring.

Winding up of a strata corporation

With the growing concern over the environmental impacts of commercial activity, provinces have enacted and expanded environmental legislation in order to hold companies accountable for the costs of remediating the environmental harm they cause. However, regulators have struggled with how to hold companies accountable for environmental harm when they become insolvent. For many years, clean-up obligations have been treated as unsecured claims lacking priority over secured claims. On January 31, 2019, the Supreme Court o

The Alberta Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal brought by three municipalities (the “Municipalities”) seeking status as secured creditors entitled to special priority for payment of linear property taxes.

The Alberta Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal brought by three municipalities (the "Municipalities") seeking status as secured creditors entitled to special priority for payment of linear property taxes.

In Northern Sunrise County v Virginia Hills Oil Corp, 2019 ABCA 61, the primary issue was whether the Municipal Government Act ("MGA") grants to an Alberta municipality a special lien for linear property taxes, which lien ranks senior in priority to contractual security interests if the tax debtor is not bankrupt or subject to other insolvency proceedings.

Background

The Defendant was a dentist who had executed a personal guarantee on July 7, 2011 in favour of the Plaintiff (the "Bank") in order to secure payment of the indebtedness of the Defendant's professional corporation. The Bank made a demand for payment on the guarantee, and subsequently brought an action against the Defendant (the "First Action").The Bank was successful on a motion for summary judgment and judgment was granted against the Defendant.

The Bottom Line

KERPs (Key Employee Retention Plans) and KEIPs (Key Employee Incentive Plans), otherwise referred to as “pay to stay” compensation plans, are commonly offered by employers to incent key employees to remain with the company during an insolvency restructuring proceeding when so-called “key employees” may be tempted to find more stable employment elsewhere.

The Alberta Court of Queen's Bench has issued several conflicting decisions on whether a stay of proceedings in an insolvency matter should be temporarily lifted to allow enforcement of a contractual right to immediately replace an operator of oil and gas assets in the event of the operator's insolvency.

With the growing concern over the environmental impacts of commercial activity, provinces have enacted and expanded environmental legislation in order to hold companies accountable for the costs of remediating the environmental harm they cause. However, regulators have struggled with how to hold companies accountable for environmental harm when they become insolvent. For many years, clean-up obligations have been treated as unsecured claims lacking priority over secured claims.