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A recent Supreme Court judgement has confirmed that where an individual, Mr X, acts as director of company A, and company A is the sole director of company B, that will not necessarily make Mr X a “de facto” director of company B.

The Court decided that the mere fact of acting as a director of a corporate director was not enough to render the individual a de-facto director, “something more” would be required, such as the director holding himself out in correspondence as a director of company B.

As discussed in previous posts on this site, back in December the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a summary order that reversed the bankruptcy court’s confirmation of the reorganization plan (the “Plan”) of DBSD North America, f/k/a ICO North America (“DBSD”).

Rainy Sky SA et al v Kookmin Bank [2010] All ER (D) 255 (May) In our Spring 2010 e-news we reported on the case of Kookmin Bank which dealt with the interpretation of a refund guarantee between Kookmin Bank (the “Bank”) and the customer of an insolvent shipyard. The Bank issued a refund guarantee to secure obligations assumed by its customer Jinse Shipbuilding (the “Builder”). The agreement required the Bank to repay on demand all of the instalments paid by the buyer, Rainy Sky, on the occurrence of a default event under the refund guarantee.

Section 113 of the Housing Grants, Construction & Regeneration Act 1996 (the 1996 Act) outlaws pay when paid provisions, with one exception. It is permissible for a Contractor to use a pay when paid provision to deny payment of outstanding amounts due to its Sub-contractor where the Client at the top of the supply chain has gone bust. The general consensus is of course that this exception is unfair. It is essentially asking the Sub-contractors to act as insurers of both the main Contractor and Client insolvency.