有关Kaoru Takamatsu – [2019] HKCFI 802一案 (判决日期2019年3月25日)
香港法庭首次认可日本清盘程序，并向日本法庭委任的破产管理人提供援助。
背景介绍
于2018年3月1日，东京地区裁判法院民事诉讼第20支部向Japan Life Co, Ltd (以下简称“Japan Life”) 颁发清盘令，并委任Kaoru Takamatsu先生为破产管理人。
Takamatsu先生需要获取Japan Life在瑞穗银行及汇丰银行的香港分行所持有的银行账户记录。于是，Takamatsu先生寻求香港法庭的认可和援助，以获得该账户的记录，并处理Japan Life在香港的相关事务。
判定和原则
Delivering on the announcement in the Autumn Budget, HMRC issued its consultation "Protecting your taxes in insolvency" on 26 February 2019. The consultation proposes legislation that will give HMRC the elevated status to secondary preferential creditor in a company's insolvency. If this is implemented, HMRC will have priority to recover certain taxes from insolvent businesses ahead of other creditors from 6 April 2020.
Receivables financiers, lenders taking security assignments over contractual rights, participants in the secondary loan market and others have an interest in:
In a decision to be welcomed by ratepayers, the Court of Appeal in Rossendale Borough Council and others v. Hurstwood Properties (A) Limited and others [2019] EWCA Civ 364 has confirmed that certain types of mitigation schemes are not sufficient to pierce the corporate veil and transfer liability for business rates to the beneficiaries of those schemes.
Liability for business rates
Under the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement, following an event of default, there is either an automatic termination or the non-defaulting party can serve a notice designating an Early Termination Date. There then has to be a determination by the non-defaulting party of the compensation that is owed by one party or the other. This is done by closing out the transactions, which involves determining gains or losses in replacing or providing the economic equivalent of the terminated transactions. Once that is done, a statement is served setting out the calculations.
Welcome to this month's edition of our commercial and tech update, covering a wide range of topics from Facebook's lacklustre approach in dealing with IP infringement to further confirmation on the Courts' approach to liquidated damages.
(Mis)Adventures in advertising
A year after its collapse, Carillion's insolvency continues to haunt both its supply chain and the wider UK construction industry. Many of those left unpaid had spent months chasing Carillion for payment, all the while staving off payment demands from others. Overnight, their debts became unsecured. The flow of cash from Carillion that would have paid its supply chain dried up. A cascade of consequential insolvencies was inevitable.
In the recent High Court judgment in VTB Bank (Public Joint Stock Company) v Anan Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd,(1) the plaintiff successfully obtained a winding-up order on a debtor company six weeks after the service of a statutory demand for an underlying debt of $250 million.
Welcome to the inaugural edition of 'Going concerns', in which we strive to bring you the latest updates on restructuring and insolvency law. For this issue, we focus on Singapore and provide:
In the recent decision in LBI EHF v. Raiffeisen Bank International AG [2018] EWCA Civ 719, the Court of Appeal has considered the close-out valuation provisions for "repo" trades entered into under a Global Master Repurchase Agreement (2000 edition). The court refused to limit the wide discretion given to a non-defaulting party to determine fair market value under the GMRA.
The factual background