The Court of Appeal has helpfully confirmed that a judgment creditor can seek an order appointing a receiver by way of equitable execution where:

• the debtor holds a legal or equitable interest in property; and
• execution against the property is not available at law by one of the usual methods, for instance via the sheriff or by a garnishee order.

There was previously doubt as to whether such a receiver could be appointed where the debtor held a legal, as opposed to an equitable interest, in property.

Being inexperienced can contribute to getting into disciplinary trouble, but it can also be a mitigating factor in a bar disciplinary case. That’s the message of a recent opinion of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which imposed a six month suspension from state practice as reciprocal discipline on a lawyer who had already been suspended from federal bankruptcy court practice for five years.

Raising the risk?

The High Court has recently expressed concern that distressed borrowers are being duped into paying money to the anonymous promoters of schemes, which purport to protect them from enforcement by lenders but are actually ‘utterly misguided and spurious’.

There are a number of schemes being promoted at the moment that supposedly protect borrowers in arrears from enforcement by their lender.

Simple retention of title clauses are commonplace and generally effective in contracts for the sale of goods. However, extending their effect to the proceeds of sale of such goods requires careful drafting.

The Court of Appeal has provided some further clarity around the creation and effects of fiduciary obligations in relation to such clauses.[1]

Proceeds of sale clauses

The High Court has reiterated that cross-examination will not generally be permitted on an interlocutory application, or where there is no conflict of fact on the affidavits.

In McCarthy v Murphy,^[1] the defendant mortgagor was not permitted to cross-examine the plaintiff (a receiver) or a bank employee who swore a supporting affidavit.

Background

Two recent judgments have brought further clarity in relation to the rights acquirers of loan portfolios to enforce against borrowers:

In AIB Mortgage Bank -v- O'Toole & anor [2016] IEHC 368 the High Court determined that a bank was not prevented from relying on a mortgage as security for all sums due by the defendants, despite issuing a redemption statement which omitted this fact.

In order to understand this case, it is necessary to set out the chronology of events:

My spouse and I visited Chicago years ago, and confusedly started driving the wrong way down a one-way street.  We were promptly pulled over by one of the Windy City’s finest.  I gave him my best smile, and said, “Sorry, officer, we’re from out of town.”  He grunted, “Don’t they have one-way streets where you come from?”  But he didn’t give us a ticket.  A recent disciplinary opinion out of Oklahoma, involving a tech-challenged bankruptcy lawyer, brings the story to mind.

E-filing woes bring bankruptcy court discipline

Bankruptcy law in Ireland is now, broadly speaking, in line with that of the United Kingdom.

In particular, for bankrupts who cooperate with the bankruptcy process:

• bankruptcy will end in one year; and
• their interest in their family home will re-vest in them after 3 years.

Notably however, the courts will have discretion to extend the period of bankruptcy for up to 15 years for non-cooperative individuals and those who have concealed or transferred assets to the detriment of creditors.

When you start planning to leave your firm for greener pastures, lots of ethics issues can crop up (bad pun). One of the most acute issues is if you get an offer to join a firm that is on the opposite side of a matter you are already handling. That was the situation in a recent bankruptcy case, In re US Bentonite, Inc., and it led the court to order the firm representing a Chapter 11 debtor-in-possession to disgorge several months’ worth of fees.