Judgment has been reserved on the sanction of Houst Ltd’s restructuring plan at a hearing held in front of Zacaroli J on Friday morning (15 July 2022), while the company gathers the further valuation information requested by the court. If sanctioned, the plan will be the first use of the restructuring plan by an SME, and will involve a “cram” of HMRC notwithstanding the tax authority’s secondary preferential creditor status.

The proposed plan

Good afternoon.

Following are this week’s summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 11, 2022. There were many interesting cases this week.

In Humphrey v. Mene Inc., the Court allowed an appeal in part and reduced damages for wrongful dismissal from twelve months to seven as a result of the plaintiff’s failure to reasonably mitigate by accepting another comparable position seven months after she had been dismissed. The awards of aggravated and punitive damages were upheld.

In Shandong Chenming Paper Holdings Limited v Arjowiggins HKK2 Limited [2022] HKCFA 11, the Court of Final Appeal has confirmed that the "leverage" created by the prospect of a winding-up – as opposed to the making of a winding-up order – provides a legitimate form of "benefit" for the purposes of satisfying the second of the three "core requirements" for winding up a foreign incorporated company in Hong Kong.

Good afternoon.

Please find our summaries of the civil decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 4, 2022.

On 28 June 2022 the Insolvency Service published a report it had commissioned from RSM UK to assess the impact that CVAs were having on commercial landlords (the “Report”).

The company voluntary arrangement (CVA) is an insolvency process that has raised significant concern amongst commercial property owners in recent years about their use by tenant companies to change lease terms, write off arrears and recalculate future rental liabilities. Some property owners feel that they have been unfairly targeted by CVAs, particularly in the retail and casual dining sectors, to the benefit of other creditors.

Wirecard's insolvency administrator has won a first victory before the Munich I Regional Court. On 5 May, the court declared the annual financial statements for 2017 and 2018, which show balance sheet profits totalling around EUR 600 million, null and void. Dividends of around EUR 47 million were distributed to Wirecard's shareholders from these profits, which probably never existed. As a consequence of the nullity of the annual accounts, the resolutions on the utilisation of the balance sheet profits are also null and void.

Good evening.

Following are this week’s summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of May 2nd, 2022.

In Poirier v. Logan, the Court upheld the permanent stay of an action for failure to disclose a partial settlement agreement with some of the defendants.

A Hong Kong court has stayed a petition presented on the just and equitable ground to arbitration, on the basis of arbitration agreements found within what the petitioner described as quasi-partnership agreements formed in 2007. The court also dismissed claims that the appointed arbitrator lacked the requisite qualifications and experience, and that a stay would lead to further costs and duplication of resources.

Good afternoon.

These are our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of April 25, 2022.