As we approach the end of 2015, now is the time to start planning the liquidation of Cayman Islands entities that have reached the end of their life cycle to ensure that unnecessary 2016 fees are not incurred.

A recent decision of the Grand Court, Primeo Fund (in official liquidation) v Herald Fund SPC (in official liquidation)¹, is another win for investor certainty in the Cayman Islands.  In previous updates, we have written about Cayman Islands and BVI decisions which illustrate the various challenges associated with bringing clawback actions in the Cayman Islands against innocent arm's length mutual fund investors who have validly redeemed their shares.²  That message has been further reinforced, on different grounds, by Jones J in P

The recent judgment of the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal ("CICA") in Asia Pacific Limited v ARC Capital LLC¹ explains the approach that the Court will take when considering an application to strike-out a contributory's just and equitable winding up petition which is based on an offer to purchase the petitioner's shares at fair value. 

“Stop in the name of love, before you break my heart”

That’s what bankruptcy lawyers are now proclaiming in the wake of Baker Botts v. Asarco, in which the Supreme Court held that the debtor’s law firm could not be paid its “fees on fees” in defending against an objection to their fees. Two disclaimers. First, our firm represented the winning party in Baker Botts, Second, I am a bankruptcy lawyer and I would like to be paid all of my fees, including fees on fees. But it ain’t right or, at least, it ain’t what Congress authorized in Bankruptcy Code § 330.

Introduction

The Companies Act 2014 (the "Act") was recently passed by the Irish parliament and is expected to be brought into force on 1 June 2015 (the "Commencement Date").  The Act is largely a consolidation and modernisation exercise. 

However, there are a number of significant areas which modify existing companies legislation and which lenders will need to consider both in the run-up to the Commencement Date and afterwards.  In particular these relate to:

The Court of Appeal has recently clarified that if a foreign company, being a shareholder of a Cayman Islands company, issues a winding up petition against that company and there is evidence that the petitioning company will be unable to pay an adverse costs order if the respondent is successful at trial, then the Cayman Islands court has an inherent jurisdiction to order the petitioning foreign company to provide security for the respondent's costs – Re Dyxnet Holdings¹.

In Lewis Holdings Limited & Others v.

Last week, the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Limited (in Liquidation) (the "Fund") v Stefan Peterson and Hans Ekstrom (the "Directors").  The appeal from the first instance decision was allowed and the Grand Court's order of 26 August 2011 was set aside.  

Extra Extra Read All About It. It was a cataclysmic weekend in college football for the Big 12 conference. The college football playoff committee elevated the one-loss Ohio State Buckeyes (Big 10) into the fourth and final slot in the inaugural College Football Playoff, taming a one-loss Baylor Bears (Big 12) sloth and a one-loss TCU Horned Frogs (Big 12) colony in the process. Some naysayers may look to the Big 12′s soft schedules and the absence of a league tiebreaker game as drivers of the committee’s decision.