Fulltext Search

Introduction

In decisions delivered on August 24 2015 and October 7 2015 the Royal Courts of Guernsey and Jersey, respectively, held that where the affairs of two insolvent companies (incorporated in Jersey and Guernsey, respectively) are so intermingled that the expense of unravelling them would adversely affect distributions to creditors, the companies may be treated as a single entity.

Introduction

On 24 October 2014, the Commerce & Employment department published its consultation paper on various options for reforming Guernsey's insolvency regime, both for personal and corporate insolvency.  Responses to the consultation are due by 31 December 2014.  The consultation paper proposes some fairly wide-ranging reforms and seeks responses from industry to a number of questions which, by and large, seek to augment, develop and regularise the insolvency regime in the Island. 

In our e-updates of 20 January 2010 and 16 August 2010, we looked at decisions of the English and Scottish courts from December 2009 and August 2010 in which it was decided that, in England and Scotland respectively, the Administrators of a tenant company are bound to account to the landlord of premises for rent due in relation to the period during which those premises are being u

Our government has a longstanding commitment to cutting red tape. One of the ways of doing this it seems is to propose an Act of Parliament running to 153 pages. Thus we are presented with the Deregulation Bill.

A few of the provisions of this Bill relate to insolvency. The most significant are:

Appeal Judges in the Court of Session yesterday issued a decision directing that the liquidators of Scottish Coal Company (SCC) cannot abandon sites or disclaim statutory licences imposing obligations on the company.

In September 2012, Grant Thornton were appointed by the Royal Court of Guernsey as joint administrators of a Guernsey company called Montenegro investments limited (MIL) - a Guernsey property Investment Fund..  The joint administrators then appointed Ogier.

Current Status of MIL

A recent overruling by the Supreme Court has revoked the priority status of pension schemes issued with a Financial Support Direction (FSD) or Contribution Notice (CN) by the Pensions Regulator, following an insolvency event. Whilst the decision largely affects companies operating within England and Wales, Scottish Courts are expected to be guided by the ruling.

The 2011 decision

This client briefing provides a general overview of schemes of arrangement for Guernsey companies under the Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008 (the Companies Law).  A scheme of arrangement can involve almost any kind of corporate reorganisation, merger, acquisition or restructuring so long as the appropriate approvals and court sanction are obtained. In the context of restructurings, there is limited precedent in Guernsey, although such schemes of arrangement can be used to assist in insolvent/quasi-insolvent restructurings.