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Introduction

Today, the UK Supreme Court considered for the first time the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of a company’s directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.

The High Court in London gave judgment on Friday, 3 July 2020 on the relative ranking of over $10 billion of subordinated liabilities in the administrations of two entities in the Lehman Brothers group.

In a recent landmark judgment dated 21 February 2016 the Dubai Court of First Instance decided in favour of a foreign shareholder, against a local Emirati, in a winding up petition. This is contrary to the long established protectionist trend employed by Courts in the United Arab Emirates. What is even more surprising is that the Court, in reaching its decision, has adopted a purposive approach, rather than simply applying the black letter of the law, as has traditionally been the case.

Case Details

The recent decisions in Re MF Global UK Ltd and Re Omni Trustees Ltd give conflicting views as to whether section 236 of the Insolvency Act 1986 has extra-territorial effect. In this article, we look at the reasoning in the two judgments and discuss a possible further argument for extra-territorial effect.

The conflicting rulings on section 236