Two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions demonstrate that the corporate attribution doctrine is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Welcome to our latest quarterly bulletin which contains updates on commercial litigation developments over the past three months, largely by reference to articles posted to our Litigation Notes blog in that period. Other posts are available on the blog, which you can visit any time. Or subscribe to be notified of the latest updates: https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/notes/litigation.

Court approval of a sale process in receivership or Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) proposal proceedings is generally a procedural order and objectors do not have an appeal as of right; they must seek leave and meet a high test in order obtain it. However, in Peakhill Capital Inc. v.

The Court of Appeal has set aside a freezing order obtained by a provisional liquidator within winding up proceedings, on the basis that the cross-undertaking in damages given by him was inadequate because it was limited to the amount recovered for the estate. The liquidator had not discharged the burden of showing good reason to depart from the “default position” that a cross-undertaking should be unlimited in amount: Hunt v Ubhi [2023] EWCA Civ 417.

The Court of Appeal has held that a settlement agreement between a bank and a group of companies which included releases of the parties’ affiliates prevented the companies from later pursuing claims against their own affiliates. Those affiliates were held to include former administrators appointed by the bank and the administrators’ solicitors: Schofield v Smith [2022] EWCA Civ 824.

With two decisions (No. 1895/2018 and No. 1896/2018), both filed on 25 January 2018, the Court of Cassation reached opposite conclusions in the two different situations

The case

The Constitutional Court (6 December 2017) confirmed that Art. 147, para. 5, of the Italian Bankruptcy Law does not violate the Constitution as long as it is interpreted in a broad sense

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With the decision No. 1195 of 18 January 2018, the Court of Cassation ruled on the powers of the extraordinary commissioner to require performance of pending contracts and on the treatment of the relevant claims of the suppliers

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The Court of Cassation with a decision of 25 September 2017, No. 22274 confirms that Art. 74 of the Italian Bankruptcy Law provides a special rule, which does not apply to cases to which it is not explicitly extended

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With the decision No. 1649 of 19 September 2017 the Court of Appeals of Catania followed the interpretation according to which a spin-off is not subject to the avoiding powers of a bankruptcy receiver

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