Creditors seeking to enforce an undisputed debt against a solvent foreign non-Hong Kong company in the courts of Hong Kong will welcome the recent judgment of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) in Shandong Chenming Paper Holdings Limited v Arjowiggins HKK 2 Limited [2022] HKCFA 11, as the CFA helpfully backs a broader and more commercially holistic interpretation of a key tenet relating to how Hong Kong courts approach certain threshold assessments involving winding up petitions brought by creditors in Hong Kong against foreign incorporated companies.

On May 1, 2020, in connection with the bankruptcy sale of Dean Foods Company (“Dean Foods”), the Department of Justice Antitrust Division required divestiture of certain Dean Foods assets by Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (“DFA”). DFA and Prairie Farms Dairy Inc. (“Prairie Farms”) were acquiring fluid milk processing plants from Dean Foods.

In the recent case Re CW Advanced Technologies Limited, the Hong Kong court took the opportunity, albeit only obiter dicta, to raise and briefly comment on certain unresolved questions surrounding three issues of interest to insolvency practitioners: