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

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 Supreme Court’s long-awaited decision in the Sequana case (handed down on 5 October 2022)^[1] is the first time that the UK’s highest court has been asked to consider the proposition that directors are, in certain circumstances, under a duty in respect of creditors’ interests as distinct from shareholders’ interests.

The key takeaway points from this ‘momentous decision for company law’ (the words of Lady Arden who gave one of the leading judgments) are:

What are the new provisions?

Introduction

On 20 May 2020, the UK Government published the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the “Bill”). The Bill was published in response to Covid-19 with a view to assisting companies and directors through these challenging times.

Introduction

On 28 March 2020, the UK Government announced upcoming insolvency law reforms in response to Covid-19, intended to help companies and directors.

On 23 April 2020, the UK Government announced further measures to protect the UK high street from aggressive rent collection by prohibiting the use of statutory demands and winding up petitions to collect rent which was unpaid due to difficulties caused by Covid-19. However, at the time, it was unclear from the announcement as to whether these prohibitions would extend beyond unpaid rent to other debts.

Introduction

On Saturday (28 March 2020) the UK Government announced certain changes to insolvency laws in response to COVID-19, intended to help companies and directors.

There are two aspects to the changes:

A real, as opposed to remote, risk of insolvency is not necessarily enough for the duties of a board of directors to switch from being owed to its shareholders to being owed to its creditors.

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

The case