November 2015 Financial Services Bulletin The Supreme Court of Canada Confirmed Today the Paramountcy of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act over License Denial Regimes The Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) released today its much awaited decision in 407 ETR,1 in which it upheld the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, and ruled that Section 22(4) of the Highway 407 Act is constitutionally inoperative to the extent that it is used to enforce a provable claim that has been discharged pursuant to section 178(2) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

On October 13, 2015, the Ontario Court of Appeal (the "Court of Appeal") upheld1 a CCAA judge's decision that the "interest stops rule" applies in CCAA proceedings, which significantly limits unsecured creditors' ability to recover interest accrued after the date of a debtor's insolvency.

Background

When a bankrupt company’s most valuable assets include consumer information, a tension arises between bankruptcy policy aimed at maximizing asset value, on the one hand, and privacy laws designed to protect consumers’ personal information, on the other.

Social media accounts can be “property of the estate” in a bankruptcy case of a business, and thus belong to the business, even when the contents of the accounts are intermingled with personal content of managers and owners. This principle was recently confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in In re CTLI, LLC (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Apr.

We don’t know about you, but we’ve been following the contentious litigation between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and debt-relief services company Morgan Drexen pretty closely. The CFPB filed its lawsuit in August 2013, alleging, among other things, that the company deceived consumers into paying unlawful up-front fees for debt relief services by disguising them as fees related to “sham” bankruptcy services.

Client Alert February 5, 2015 Second Circuit to Lenders: Get Your UCC Filings Right By Geoffrey R. Peck and Jordan A. Wishnew1 INTRODUCTION On January 21, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion regarding a mistaken UCC-3 termination statement that all loan market participants should consider carefully.

In a recent decision, the Ontario Superior Court clarified the test by which Ontario courts will recognize foreign bankruptcy proceedings.

Under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act1, trustees have considerable discretion to administer a bankrupt’s estate in an expedient manner. However, the British Columbia Court of Appeal recently confirmed that trustees must exercise such discretion within the limits of relevant statutory provisions and common law principles.

I.  Introduction

Canadian restructuring and liquidation legislation provides struggling companies and bankruptcy trustees with powerful tools to restructure their affairs and maximize value for stakeholders. For example, in the right circumstances valuable contracts can be assigned, on notice to the counterparties, to buyers prepared to pay well for the rights conferred under the contracts. In such circumstances, the counterparty’s bargained for right to withhold its consent to an assignment can be effectively overridden by court order.