Seafood Shack Ltd v Alan Darlow [2019] EWHC 1567 (Ch)

A lease of restaurant premises was granted to a company that did not exist; there was no legal basis for correcting the lease, and the similarly-named company claiming rights was held to have none.

The recent publication of the Courts Service Annual Report 2018 highlighted on-going economic and societal changes by way of hard data. In his Foreword to the Report, Chief Justice Frank Clarke references our digital age, noting that “people are used to round-the-clock online access to services”. He adds that the courts “must deal with the twin challenge of facilitating such access while at the same time ensuring that the court process is secure and that cases are allocated the time and consideration they require”.

An IRA owner could not rely on a Florida exemption to shield his IRA account from creditors after engaging in prohibited acts of self-dealing with his IRA funds, the Eleventh Circuit held in Yerian v. Webber, 2019 WL 2610751 (11th Cir. June 26, 2019). The IRA owner, Keith Yerian, opened a self-directed IRA. The IRA was governed by two contracts.

On May 20, 2019, the US Supreme Court clarified that when a trademark licensor rejects a trademark license agreement in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, the rejection does not rescind the use rights of the licensee under the license agreement. The decision resolved a circuit split on this issue between the First and Seventh Circuits. The Court held that the licensor’s rejection of the license agreement in bankruptcy has the same effect on the licensee’s rights as a licensor’s breach of the license agreement outside of bankruptcy.

The default setting for the hearing of many contested debt recovery and security enforcement cases is by way of affidavit evidence, particularly in the High Court[1]. The creditor swears an affidavit setting out the reasons why it maintains the court should rule in its favour. Certain documents can be presented as exhibits that back up its case such as a contract.

It is now well documented that many owners’ management companies are facing the prospect of litigating to recover the cost of remedial works for defective developments or passing the cost onto the owners themselves. Given the passage of time since the construction of the developments and the insolvency of many of the developers and contractors involved in those projects following the financial crisis, management companies often face an uphill battle to recover damages.

The appointment of a receiver by way of equitable execution has generally been considered a “remedy of last resort”[1] and, for over a hundred years, courts have expressed differing views as to when they could appoint such a receiver.

Bankruptcy law has always sought to strike a balance between the rights of creditors and debtors. In Ireland, bankruptcy and personal insolvency law has incurred seismic change over the past decade. Many of the legislative changes have been implemented from a policy basis of assisting the debtor. We look at recent developments, from the point of view of the petitioning creditor in any bankruptcy.

Automatic discharge from bankruptcy

The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform (Amendment) Bill 2019 (the “Bill”) proposes to broaden the factors that the courts can consider in refusing orders for possession sought by lenders.

The Bill has its roots in the Keeping People in their Homes Bill, 2018, introduced by Kevin “Boxer” Moran T.D., as a private member’s bill. However, the Bill does not go as far as Mr Moran’s bill and, for instance, does not require disclosure of the price paid by a purchaser of the loan.

Background

In 2018 the Supreme Court delivered its much-awaited decision in the case of SPV OSUS Ltd v HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Ireland) Ltd & Ors where it confirmed that the assignment of a claim is unenforceable in Irish law unless the assignment is ancillary to a bona fide transaction or the assignee has a genuine commercial interest in the assignment.