From 15 August 2013, the Insolvency & Trustee Service Australia (ITSA) will now be known as the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA). The name change is thought to better capture the breadth of the services administered by the authority, but the services remain the same, namely, the administration and regulation of Australia’s personal insolvency system and the administration of the Personal Property Securities Register.

In a decision rendered on August 15, 2013, the Ontario Court of Appeal in Re Nortel denied a motion for leave to appeal in a CCAA proceeding, reiterating the stringent test for leave to appeal in such circumstances. More importantly for our purposes, the court reiterated the necessity for a motion for leave to adduce fresh evidence where the moving party seeks to rely upon such evidence.

The test for granting leave to appeal in Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act proceedings is well-settled:

The Federal Court found that where a trust deed provides for the cessation of a corporate trustee upon the appointment of an administrator or upon a resolution for its liquidation (and there is no replacement trustee appointed), the corporate trustee retains its right of indemnity and continues as bare trustee but does not have the power to sell the trust assets.  However, the Court was persuaded to grant relief to the liquidators of the trustee (who had sold trust assets) on the basis they had not been advised by their solicitors of the disqualification clause and they com

In Kasten Energy Inc. v. Shamrock Oil & Gas Ltd., 2013 ABQB 63, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench considered the application of Kasten Energy Inc. (“Kasten”) to appoint a receiver over all of the assets and undertakings of Shamrock Oil & Gas Ltd. (“Shamrock”). The decision in this case presents a useful and concise summary of the applicable test for the appointment of a receiver.  

Introduction

On 29 January 2013, the Federal Court of Australia made orders approving the creditors’ scheme of arrangement between Nine Entertainment Group Pty Limited (NEG) and its senior and mezzanine lenders (Nine Scheme).

The Nine Scheme, made under Part 5.1 of the Corporations Act, follows Alinta and Centro as the third debt for equity restructuring of a major Australian company in as many years.

This is the second case in which the New South Wales Supreme Court has granted an extension of time for registration of a security interest on the Personal Property Securities Register where the delay is accidental or due to inadvertence.  However, the extension in this case was conditional firstly, by preserving the priority of another security interest which had been registered in the meantime and secondly, because there was insufficient evidence of the financial position of the grantor to establish that an extension was unlikely to prejudice other creditors or shareholde

“When a business becomes insolvent, many interests are at risk.  Creditors may not be able to recover their debts, investors may lose their investments and employees may lose their jobs. If the business is the sponsor of an employee pension plan, the benefits promised by the plan are not immune from that risk. The circumstances leading to these appeals show how that risk can materialize. Pension plans and creditors find themselves in a zero-sum game with not enough money to go around.

On Friday, February 1, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada released its highly anticipated decision in Indalex Limited (Re).  The ruling stemmed from an appeal of an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that had created commercial uncertainty for financing transactions.  The primary issue for lenders was a priority dispute between a court ordered super-priority charge granted to a lender that had provided “debtor-in-possession” (DIP) financing under the Compan

The Supreme Court of Canada released its highly anticipated decision in Indalex Limited (Re) this morning.  The ruling stemmed from an appeal of an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that had created commercial uncertainty among many participants in the financial services, pensions and restructuring industries.