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On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a bankruptcy court does not have the statutory authority to discharge creditors’ claims against a non-debtor without the creditors’ consent (except in asbestos cases). The decision in Harrington v.

Can a creditor obtain a winding up order against a debtor company if the underlying dispute over the debt is subject to an arbitration agreement between the parties?

Where a winding up petition is based on a debt arising from a contract with a non-Hong Kong exclusive jurisdiction clause, the court will tend to dismiss or stay the winding up petition in favour of the parties’ agreed forum unless there are strong countervailing factors.

In the current economic climate, more and more companies are getting into financial difficulties, informal workouts by debtor companies, with support from certain creditors, seem to be increasingly common.

Many authorities and commentators have considered cryptocurrencies, and the blockchains that undergird them, as a potentially disruptive force in the financial industry. Now, that disruption has made its way to a different side of finance—bankruptcy, and during the past year, the United States bankruptcy courts have had to confront many unexpected challenges involved in dealing with cryptocurrency.

When a company is in the so-called “twilight zone” approaching insolvency, it is well-established that the directors’ fiduciary duties require them to take into account interest of creditors (the so-called “creditor duty”).

In Simplicity & Vogue Retailing (HK) Co., Limited [2023] HKCFI 1443, the Hong Kong Companies Court (the “Court“) made a winding up order against the Company on the basis that it failed to pay security in time. In considering the Company’s opposition grounds, the Court commented that it retains discretion to wind up a company in cases involving an arbitration clause.