This week’s TGIF considers a recent decision of the High Court of Australia, in which a 4:3 majority held that a former trustee is not owed any fiduciary obligation by a successor trustee.
Key takeaways
Among the many financial innovations that came out of the COVID era, non-pro rata uptier transactions as a liability management exercise (“LMEs”) are among the more controversial. While lawsuits challenging non-pro rata uptier transactions are making their way through the courts, two important decisions were recently issued by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the New York Appellate Division.
In many of the recent insolvencies of digital asset companies, liquidators have been appointed over companies in which digital assets have been fraudulently transferred from wallets controlled by an insolvent company into other unidentified wallets in foreign jurisdictions.
The anonymity of cryptoassets causes serious difficulties for insolvency practitioners in identifying the third parties who received funds and the location of the digital wallets.
In Davis-Jacenko v Roxy’s Bootcamp Pty Limited [2024] NSWSC 702, McGrath J delivered an extempore decision, appointing provisional liquidators in respect of Roxy’s Bootcamp Pty Limited (theCompany). His Honour stated that it was “a paradigm case” for the court to intervene to preserve the status quo.
Key Takeaways
Domestic Procedures
On 28 March 2024, the BVI Court granted the Joint Liquidators of Three Arrows Capital Ltd (in liquidation) ("3AC") sanction to make an interim distribution of up to US$100 million of 3AC's assets to its creditors in BVIHC(COM)2022/0119 Russell Crumpler and Christopher Farmer (as Joint Liquidators of Three Arrows Capital Ltd (in Liquidation)) v Three Arrows Capital Ltd (in Liquidation).
Our analysis of a recent court judgment in the ongoing liquidation of the high profile crypto-asset hedge fund Three Arrows Capital is by Nicholas Brookes and Romauld Johnson, part of Ogier's BVI team representing the joint liquidators.
Read our update on crypto insolvency issues from Three Arrows, which illustrates implications of the judgment including
When do amounts owed to a company constitute ‘circulating assets’ and how should they be distributed? This crucial question has not always been answered predictably in recent cases. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Resilient Investment Group Pty Ltd v Barnet and Hodgkinson as liquidators of Spitfire Corporation Limited (in liq) [2023] NSWCA 118 has provided a framework for navigating the relevant principles in the context of a priority dispute over R&D tax refunds.
Key takeaways
On average, the Supreme Court hears a single bankruptcy case each term. But during the October 2022 term, the Supreme Court issued a remarkable four decisions in bankruptcy cases. These decisions, which are summarized below, address appellate issues relating to sale orders, the discharge of claims obtained by fraud, and sovereign immunity issues in two different contexts.
I. Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is not a jurisdictional provision that precludes appellate review of asset sale orders.