The Insolvency and Company Court of England and Wales recently held in Sell Your Car With Us Ltd v Anil Sareen [2019] EWHC 2332 (Ch) that, when a debtor fails to comply with a statutory demand and has no arguable case to dispute a debt, a winding-up petition (initiation of liquidation proceedings) is appropriate, despite judges previously expressing distaste towards the use of a petition as a method of debt collection.

The High Court in Cullen Group Limited v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2019] NZHC 3110 has rejected Cullen Group's attempt to delay payment of half a million dollars in court costs to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, with Palmer J dismissing the argument that Cullen Group would go into liquidation as a result.

Eric Watson's private investment company, Cullen Group Limited, lost a case in front of Palmer J in March which held that Cullen Group avoided $51.5m of tax. Cullen Group owed Inland Revenue $505,399.55 in court costs.

Bloomberg reported last month that the Madoff bankruptcy has one more big case to go, chasing USD3.2b held by foreign banks (see our related story above). Mr Picard, the bankruptcy trustee, has reportedly recovered over USD14b of the USD17.5b in losses arising from Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

On 10 October 2019 the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Kate Carnell, announced an upcoming inquiry into insolvency practices. The inquiry was announced in light of rising concerns as to the efficacy of the voluntary administration process for SMEs and family-owned businesses, and concerns with the conduct of insolvency practitioners more generally.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has published a Cabinet Paper outlining proposed reforms to New Zealand's insolvency laws to take account of certain recommendations made in the second report of the Insolvency Working Group from May 2017.

Non-party costs are exceptional and are only awarded when it is just to do so and when 'something more' about the non-party's conduct warrants costs.  The involvement of a parent company in litigation and avoiding a realistic settlement is an example of the 'something more' requirement being met.  In Minister of Education v H Construction North Island Ltd (in req and liq) [2019] NZHC 1459, the High Court found that McConnell Ltd's (McConnell) actions in this litigation warranted awarding non-party costs and disbursements of over a million dollars.

Meem SL Limited was an unsuccessful start-up company in the United Kingdom.  The board resolved to put the company into administration and sell the business to a company owned by the directors.

The High Court in England was asked to consider sanctioning a scheme of arrangement between Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) (LBIE) and certain of its creditors pursuant to Part 26 Companies Act 2006 (the equivalent of Part 15 Companies Act 1993).  This case was one of a number of proceedings involving the Lehman Brothers administration, many of which cases have reached the Supreme Court (see our earlier reports on 

On various occasions during the periods 2012 to 2018, Shane Warner Builders Limited (SWBL) regularly failed to pay GST and PAYE to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue.

In January 2018 the Commissioner filed an application to put SWBL into liquidation.  The proceeding was adjourned in March 2018 whilst the Commissioner and Applicant engaged in negotiations for relief which ultimately failed due to SWBL's history of failures to pay tax arrears and failing to provide substantive supporting evidence regarding the source of funds required to settle current tax arrears. 

North Harbour Motors Limited (in liquidation) (North Harbour) issued a statutory demand against Moffat Road Limited (Moffat) in respect of two separate $30,000 deposits paid by North Harbour to Moffat on the purchase of two properties pursuant to agreements for sale and purchase dated 6 July 2015 (the Agreements).