On 17 May 2017, the UK Supreme Court handed down judgment in proceedings - commonly known as the Waterfall I litigation - to determine claims with regard to the estimated £8 billion surplus arising in the estate of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE).

The New South Wales Supreme Court has found that a secured party cannot rely on its own mistake when registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) to claim that the defective registration “temporarily perfects” its security interest.

The facts

During the past several weeks the Azerbaijani Parliament has adopted a number of laws, introducing amendments to the Law On Banks, the Civil Code, the Civil Procedure Code, the Administrative Procedure Code, the Law On Telecommunications and the Law On Licenses and Permits.

We summarize the major aspects of above-mentioned amendments below.

Law “On Introducing Amendments to the Law 'On Banks'"

The Supreme Court of Queensland has delivered a significant judgement concerning the obligations of liquidators to cause an insolvent company to incur the costs of complying with State environmental laws, in priority to other unsecured creditors.

On instructions from the liquidators of Linc (Stephen Longley, Grant Sparks and Martin Ford of PPB Advisory) JWS made an application for directions in respect of both the liquidators’ and Linc’s environmental obligations in Queensland.

A recent challenge in the High Court by liquidators to recover assets from a director of an insolvent company has highlighted various points of company law. In particular, the court had to consider directors' authority, share buybacks, and transactions between a company and its directors.

The claimant (D) was the managing director and controlling shareholder of the defendant company (the Company). The Company at first had one other director, D's wife, and later a second (W).

The liquidator challenged three transactions:

On April 7, 2017, the Azerbaijani Parliament passed in the first reading a Draft Law “On Introducing Amendments to the Law "On Banks" (the “Draft Law”).

Section 433 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act) concerns the payment to employees as priority creditors by a receiver from the assets subject to a circulating security interest. The provision in large part mirrors the payment waterfall contained in section 556 that applies in a winding-up.

Background

Peter Oreb and Ingrid Webber were directors of a group of companies supplying workforce solutions to some of the largest corporations in the world. Four of the companies went into liquidation. Prior to the companies going into liquidation, Peter and Ingrid resigned as directors of those companies.

There are a number of reasons why liquidators might want to slow things down when it comes to commencing or prosecuting proceedings. A liquidator might want more time to fully investigate certain claims or secure appropriate funding before incurring substantial costs or adverse costs exposure. While there are options available to liquidators looking to delay either the commencement or service of a particular proceeding, each comes with its own risks.

The Federal Government has released the Exposure Draft for the much anticipated introduction of: