Following the judgments in recent years on attribution to a company of its directors' knowledge in Bilta (UK) Ltd (In Liquidation) v Nazir [2015] UKSC 23 and UBS AG (London Branch) and another v Kommunale Wasserwerke Leipzig [2017] EWCA Civ 1567, the UK Supreme Court has once more returned to this issue in Singularis Holdings Ltd (in Official Liquidation) (a Company Incorporated in The Cayman Islands) v Daiwa Capital Markets Europe Ltd [2019] UKSC 50, in a case where a bank (Daiwa) was held liable for breaching its Quincecare duty of care to its customer,

English courts recognise that shareholders hold a separate legal personality from the body corporate they own a stake in and will only go behind the corporate veil in limited circumstances. In the recent case of Onur Air Taşimacilik AŞ v Goldtrail Travel Ltd (In Liquidation) 1 , the Court of Appeal considered whether the financial means of the appellant’s wealthy controlling shareholder could be taken into account when making an order that the appellant had to make a substantial payment into court as a condition of being able to pursue its appeal.

Summary

Cancellation of debt a key element of most restructurings generally triggers taxable income. The German tax authorities had issued an administrative decree (the "Tax Restructuring Decree" - Sanierungserlass), however, declaring that, upon the satisfaction of certain requirements and conditioned on forfeiture of any loss carry forwards, the cancellation of debt income ("CODI") would not be taxed.