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This week’s TGIF considers Re Legend International Holdings Inc (In liq) [2018] VSC 789, the next chapter in the story of Legend International Holdings Inc, where the Court found a company to be insolvent on the basis of a foreign debt.

This week’s TGIF considers a recent Federal Court decision which validated dispositions of property made by a company after the winding up began.

WHAT HAPPENED?

On 8 May 2017, Bond J ordered that a coal exploration company (the Company) be wound up on just and equitable grounds following a shareholder oppression claim. So as to avoid the consequences of a liquidation, his Honour immediately stayed that order for a period of 7 days to enable the warring parties a final chance to resolve their differences.

This week’s TGIF considers a recent decision of the Federal Court where a special purpose liquidator was appointed to investigate suspected illegal phoenix activity.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The company formerly known as Intelara Pty Ltd (Intelara) was wholly owned by and had common directors with Intelara Holdings Pty Ltd (Holdings). The directors of both companies were also the shareholders of Holdings.

This week’s TGIF considers Re Broens Pty Limited (in liq) [2018] NSWSC 1747, in which a liquidator was held to be justified in making distributions to creditors in spite of several claims by employees for long service leave entitlements.

What happened?

On 19 December 2016, voluntary administrators were appointed to Broens Pty Limited (the Company). The Company supplied machinery & services to manufacturers in aerospace, rail, defence and mining industries.

This week’s TGIF considers Australian Worldwide Pty Ltd v AW Exports Pty Ltd where the Court awarded security for costs against plaintiff companies in liquidation, despite a litigation funder’s indemnity against adverse costs.

Background

On 12 March 2018 the European Commission published a proposal for a Regulation to govern the law applicable to the third-party effects of assignments of claims (the “Assignment Regulation”).

The proposal of the Assignment Regulation adopted by the European Commission deals with which law applies to determine the effectiveness and perfection of the transfer of title – and the creation of other rights like pledges and charges – in relation to claims and receivables vis-a-vis third parties.

In the context of German restructuring, bridge loans (Überbrückungskredite) are loans that are granted to financially distressed companies until a restructuring plan is formulated in order to avoid the company’s insolvency. In most cases, such loans are granted for a limited timeframe. After the restructuring plan has been finalized, renegotiations are usually required, in particular between the company, the lender and the company’s other creditors.

Maple Bank GmbH (“Maple”) has operated in Frankfurt, Germany since 1994. The bank acted in the business areas of equity and fixed income trading, repos and securities lending, deposits, structured products and institutional sales. Maple has branches in Germany, Netherlands and Canada and subsidiaries in U.S., U.K. and the Cayman islands. It is part of the Maple Financial Group Inc., a privately held, global financial organisation based in Canada.

Hypo Group Alpe Adria AG, an Austrian banking group, was nationalized by the Austrian government in 2009 in order to avert a bank collapse. The Austrian province of Carinthia owned the bank until 2007 and the guarantees given by Carinthia for the bank’s debt still amount to several times its annual budget, which has made the winding-down process more complicated because sharing the losses with bondholders would lead to significant claims against Carinthia.

The Austrian “Bundesgesetz über Sanierungsmaßnahmen für  die HYPO ALPE-ADRIA-BANK INTERNATIONAL AG” (HaaSanG), published on 31 July 2014 in the Austrian Federal Law Gazette and implemented in August 2014 by the Austrian government, paved the way for the establishment of Heta Asset Resolution AG (Heta) as a wind-down vehicle to assume and manage large parts of the assets of the failed Austrian bank, Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank international AG (HAA).