The Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, (Act No.40 of 2018, the "Act") , which came into force on 30 July, marks, for now at least, the final stage in what has been a far-reaching overhaul of Singapore's insolvency and debt restructuring regime.

Recent decisions of the Hong Kong and Singapore courts show different approaches to the issue of when a winding-up petition will be allowed to proceed in circumstances where there is an arbitration agreement.

In Ltd [2020] HKCFI 311, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance declined to dismiss a winding-up petition where a debtor was unable to show the existence of a bona fide dispute on substantial grounds, notwithstanding the presence of an arbitration clause in the underlying contract.

Background Facts

In a year fast becoming dubbed the “year of the CVA” in the retail sector, there was a cautionary tale for insolvency practitioners following the recent High Court judgment in Re SHB Realisations Ltd (formerly BHS ltd (in liquidation).

The timeline of the case

Taurus Petroleum v. SOMO [2017] UKSC 64

The Supreme Court has recently issued judgment in this matter concerning an attempt to enforce an arbitration award in London by obtaining a third party debt order over sums payable to the debtor under letters of credit issued by a London bank in respect of unrelated transactions.

The Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued a noteworthy opinion for those whose work involves real estate mortgage conduit trusts (REMIC trusts) or utilization of the Bankruptcy Code’s “safe harbor” provisions. In In re MCK Millennium Ctr. Parking, LLC,¹ Bankruptcy Judge Jacqueline P.

Bankruptcy Judge Christopher S. Sontchi recently ruled in the Energy Future Holdings case¹ that the debtor will not be required to pay the $431 million “make whole” demanded by bondholders upon the debtor’s early payment of the bonds.²

In what may become viewed as the de facto standard for selling customer information in bankruptcies, a Delaware bankruptcy court approved, on May 20, 2015, a multi-party agreement that would substantially limit RadioShack’s ability to sell 117 million customer records.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Wellness International Network Ltd. v. Sharif confirms the long-held and common sense belief that “knowing and voluntary consent” is the key to the exercise of judicial authority by a bankruptcy court judge.1 In short, the Supreme Court held that a litigant in a bankruptcy court can consent—expressly or impliedly through waiver—to the bankruptcy court’s final adjudication of claims that the bankruptcy court otherwise lacks constitutional authority to finally decide.

On May 6, 2015, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether so-called“Deprizio waivers,”¹ where an insider guarantor waives indemnification rights against a debtor, can insulate the guarantor from preference liability arising from payments made by the obligor to the lender. The Ninth Circuit held that if such a waiver is made legitimately—not merely to avoid preference liability—then the guarantor is not a “creditor” and cannot be subject to preference liability.