Key Point

An "establishment" requires business and business activity to be carried out involving dealings with third parties and not simply acts of internal administration.

Facts

Key point

Pensions in payment were within the ambit of section 310(7) of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the "Act"), but pensions not in payment were not payments to which a bankrupt was “entitled” as the right to draw had not been excerised. The court therefore refused to make an income payments order ("IPO").

The Facts

Key points

• Where main proceedings have been opened in one member state, secondary proceedings may be opened in another member state where the debtor has an establishment. The effects of the secondary proceedings shall be restricted to the assets in that territory.  
• Local law and court discretion may apply to the opening of secondary proceedings and may be exercised, but these should not be discriminatory.

The Facts

Key points

Agreements relating to costs in the course of their office could not be set aside by liquidators subsequently appointed.

The facts

Dealing a major blow to the trustee’s efforts to recover fraudulent transfers on behalf of the bankruptcy estate of the company run by Bernard Madoff, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held in SIPC v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC¹ that the Bankruptcy Code cannot be used to recover fraudulent transfers of funds that occur entirely outside the United States.

Key points

The court has jurisdiction to order the UK Registrar of Companies to replace previously filed administrators' proposals.

The Facts

The administrators of a company filed a statement of proposals with the Registrar but then sought to replace the proposals because they contained information that the company was obliged to keep confidential. The administrators argued that:

Key point

An English winding up does not cease to have effect when an overseas company is dissolved under the law of its state of incorporation.

The facts

Agrenco Madeira – Comercio Internacional LDA (the "Company") was incorporated under the laws of Portugal in March 2004. The Company presented a winding up petition in England in August 2009. Its centre of main interests was in Brazil and therefore the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings did not apply. The Company was wound up in England as an unregistered company in October 2009.

Key point

Where in a UK administration an action would give some benefit to creditors, and risk neither detriment to them nor impede the administration's progress, the court may be willing to intervene and support a challenge to the administrator's actions.

The facts

Key point

An English scheme for a company that has a "sufficiently close connection" with the jurisdiction can be proposed albeit recognition in Poland is at the discretion of the Polish courts.

The Facts