Since our last update in October 2019, there have been many interesting developments in the area of environmental law. The COVID-19 pandemic, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and climate change were key topics that shaped judicial, legislative, and policy changes in British Columbia and across Canada. With respect to judicial developments, disputes over natural resource projects, contaminated sites, environmental prosecutions, as well as judicial review or appeal decisions arising from environmental regulatory bodies, brought many changes to the landscape of environmental law.

This briefing first appeared in the June 2020 edition of South Square Digest.

Executive Summary

In February 2020 the British Virgin Islands Commercial Court (the "BVI Court") sanctioned a creditor scheme of arrangement, which was part of a much larger cross boarder restructuring. This scheme of arrangement, which as a creditor scheme was itself rare for the BVI, was preceded by the BVI's first ever "soft touch" provisional liquidation (in linked proceedings), which commenced in December 2018.