When a company is in financial distress, directors face difficult choices. Should they trade on to try to “trade out” of the company’s financial difficulties or should they file for insolvency? If they act too soon, will creditors complain that they should have done more to save the business? A recent English High Court case raises the prospect of directors potentially being held to account for decisions that “merely postpone the inevitable.”

A Hong Kong court has refused to sanction a scheme of arrangement, saying that practitioners should explain the key terms and effect of any proposed restructuring in a way which can be easily understood by the creditors and the court.

In Re Sino Oiland Gas Holdings Ltd [2024] HKCFI 1135, the Honourable Madam Justice Linda Chan refused to sanction a scheme of arrangement, saying that creditors had been given insufficient information about the restructuring and the scheme that would enable them to make an informed decision at the scheme meeting.

The Hong Kong Court of Appeal has finally laid to rest the vexed issue of whether an arbitration agreement or a winding-up petition should take precedence in an insolvency situation. In two parallel decisions, the Court of Appeal ruled that an arbitration agreement should be treated in the same way as an exclusive jurisdiction clause and that the principle should be given a wide interpretation.

The Hong Kong High Court has given a rare order for modifications to a scheme of arrangement after it had been implemented incorrectly by the scheme administrators. Drawing on instances in which the English courts have sanctioned modifications after approval by scheme creditors, the court held that the same principles apply here.

A Hong Kong court has rejected a bid to force liquidators to provide information and documents regarding their plans and strategies on related litigation as well as information on legal costs and funding arrangements.

New statutory provisions have come into effect that will modernise the way documents are filed with the Official Receiver in Hong Kong. The changes, which took place on the last working day of 2023, pave the way for the electronic submission of certain documents to the Official Receiver's Office (ORO) and dispense with the mandatory newspaper advertising of some statements and notices, which going forward will only require publication in the Gazette or other specified means.

According to a recent report, nearly 6,000 construction companies in the UK are in danger of going out of business. In Hong Kong, a major contractor has lost its licence and was removed from the government's registered list of contractors on 16 November 2023, with the company being given only a month to settle five private residential and commercial projects. When construction companies become insolvent, a host of tricky legal and practical issues come into play.

A bleak picture

一、“集中管辖”概述

《中华人民共和国民事诉讼法》（下称“《民事诉讼法》”）中，对于“集中管辖”并无明确的规定，而在民事诉讼的司法实践中，存在许多被称为“集中管辖”的做法。实务中，“集中管辖”泛指将某类案件，依照《民事诉讼法》及其他法律法规的相关规定，以司法解释或者通知的形式，集中由某类法院或某个法院管辖的情形。

概括来说，“集中管辖”共分为如下三种情形：

（1）某类法院集中管辖某类案件，如依据《中华人民共和国企业破产法》（下称“《企业破产法》”）第二十一条的规定，破产案件中涉债务人的诉讼案件集中由受理破产申请的人民法院管辖，或者依据《全国法院审理债券纠纷案件座谈会纪要》（以下简称“《债券会议纪要》”）第十条的规定，以发行人或者增信机构为被告提起的要求依约偿付债券本息或者履行增信义务的合同纠纷案件，由发行人住所地人民法院管辖；

（2）某个法院集中管辖某一类型化案件，如各地金融法院集中管辖当地金融案件、各地知识产权法院集中管辖当地知识产权案件；

The Hong Kong court has granted an order forcing an uncooperative former director of a Hong Kong listed company to ratify the appointment of a Hong Kong liquidator as the sole director of the companies' four BVI subsidiaries. The court rejected the idea that the liquidators should be made to apply for fresh winding up orders in the BVI and stressed that courts should be ready to offer each other mutual assistance.

The Singapore High Court has again confirmed that a winding-up application concerning a disputed debt that is subject to an arbitration agreement will be dismissed if the arbitration agreement is prima facie valid and covers the dispute. This prima facie standard of review was first formulated three years ago by the Singapore Court of Appeal in AnAn Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd v VTB Bank (Public Joint Stock Company) [2020] SCGA 33.