A recent decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reaffirms its position that only in rare cases will it be appropriate to interfere with concurrent findings of fact of two lower tribunals.¹ The Privy Council found Byers and others v Chen Ningning to be one such case on the basis that an error in findings of fact as to the Respondent’s status as a director had been made by the first instance trial judge and upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Introduction

A recent decision of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal has confirmed that, whilst the courts of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) will recognise the appointment of foreign representatives (including liquidators and trustees in bankruptcy) as having status in the BVI in accordance with his or her appointment by a foreign court, they may only provide assistance to representatives from certain designated countries.

What a creditor needs to know about liquidating GUIDE an insolvent Cayman company

Last reviewed: December 2020

Contents

Introduct ion When is a company insolvent? What is a statutory demand?

Section 154 of the Companies Act, No 71 of 2008 (Act) provides that a business rescue plan (BR plan) may provide that a creditor, who has acceded to the discharge of the whole or part of a debt owing to that creditor, will lose the right to enforce the debt or part of it. Furthermore, if a BR plan has been approved and implemented, a creditor is not entitled to enforce any debt owed by the company immediately before the beginning of the business rescue process, except to the extent provided for in the BR plan.

The legal principles relating to execution against movable property are more or less settled, less so the law relating to execution against immovable property. This is mainly because the right to housing is enshrined in s26 of the Constitution and the issue of land has become somewhat emotive and politicised in the recent past.

In many, if not all, commercial transactions, timing is everything, either for a distressed seller or a purchaser stumbling upon a deal that may almost be too good to be true. There is often no time to waste and a deal must be closed as soon as possible. In the haste of closing a deal, whether in the form of a sale of business or a sale of assets, the parties often agree not to comply with the provisions of s34(1) of the Insolvency Act, No 24 of 1936 (Act), each willing to take the risk in not doing so.

Section 34(1) of the Act provides that:

It is trite that the purpose of business rescue proceedings is to rehabilitate companies that have fallen on hard times, with a hope of either rescuing them or to provide a better return to creditors than what they would receive on a liquidation. This was reiterated in the recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment of Van Staden and Others NNO v Pro-Wiz (Pty) Ltd (412/2018) [2019] ZASCA 7 (8 March 2019).

The Bill aims to amend, among others, the Insolvency Act, 1936 (Insolvency Act) to provide that secured creditors holding property pledged as security for the obligations of a South African party arising under a “master agreement” may:

We identify and explain four of the court’s key findings below:

1. “In all matters where execution is sought against a primary residence, the entire claim, including the monetary judgment, must be adjudicated at the same time”.

This brief alert is a follow-up to our previous article published on 1 February 2017, on the SCA judgment and is aimed at reporting on the Constitutional Court judgment.

The Policy