On July 31, 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada provided clarity regarding the treatment of administrative monetary penalties and disgorgement orders resulting from securities violations in Poonian v. British Columbia (Securities Commission).

As we enter 2025, we look back on five important decisions that made the news in 2024. Here is the the first case.

Mareva orders, also known as freezing orders, may be granted when there is a risk that a defendant might move its assets out of reach of the court’s jurisdiction. Mareva can orders freeze assets owned directly or indirectly by the defendants. Oftentimes a defendant subject to a freezing order has other creditors seeking repayment. Can a creditor enforce its claim against the frozen assets? Yes, but the creditor must come to the court with clean hands and should not make loans to the defendant if it has notice of the order.

Key Takeaways

Key Takeaways

Key Takeaways

On 2 June 2020, Mr Justice Morgan handed down his judgment in the case of Re: A Company [2020] EWHC 1406 (Ch) in which a High Street retailer (whose identity is not disclosed) applied to restrain the presentation of a winding-up petition based on the provisions of the yet-to-be-enacted Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill 2020 (the “Bill”).

The Government published its Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill on 20 May 2020, which will implement the most significant reform to the UK’s insolvency framework in decades. In addition to permanent landmark changes, including introducing a business rescue moratorium and new restructuring plan, the Bill contains a number of temporary measures to help businesses respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

Legislative changes in Singapore and the EU introduce pre-insolvency processes facilitating non-consensual debt restructurings or cram downs comparable to those already available in London and New York. In particular, the EU Recast Insolvency Regulation (the "Recast Regulation") came into effect on June 26, 2017, enhancing cross-border co-operation for applicable insolvency proceedings starting in the EU after that date.*

The existing insolvency rules in the UK have been recast with the aim to "modernize and consolidate" the procedural framework for insolvency processes in the UK and promote efficiency. The Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (the “New Rules”) came into force on April 6, 2017.

A key feature of the New Rules is a welcome overhaul of the provisions regarding communication with creditors, to allow for electronic communications instead of paper documents and physical meetings.