In In re Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., No. 11-15719 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio Feb. 4, 2013), the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio held that a law firm hired to represent the debtor could not assert privilege on behalf of the debtor’s individual directors and officers.

For some, environmental liability is akin to a game of hot potato. In other words, no one wants to be the one left holding the potato when the music stops playing - otherwise they could be facing significant obligations to remedy contaminated lands. As remediation costs can be significant, owners, purchasers and creditors must tread carefully when dealing with contaminated real estate.

The British Columbia case of Botham Holdings Ltd. (Trustee of) v. Braydon Investments Ltd. is a reminder that tax and estate plans must take non-tax issues and law into account. It can be extremely dangerous to let the tax tail wag the dog!

Mr. Botham and a family trust were the shareholders of Botham Holdings Ltd. ("Holdings"). In 2004 Holdings was fortunate enough to realize a large capital gain and, as a result, incurred a significant income tax liability.

The Ninth Circuit held that a bankruptcy court properly denied a motion to compel arbitration against a debtor, notwithstanding the existence of a valid arbitration agreement covering the dispute, and held that the bankruptcy court properly exercised its discretion to adjudicate the claim in the bankruptcy proceedings.  In re Thorpe Insulation Co., 671 F.3d 1011 (9th Cir. 2012) (No.

In O’Neil v. Crane Co., 266 P.3d 987 (Cal.

In Jagodzinski v. Silicon Valley Innovation Co., No. 6203, Slip Op. (Del. Ch. Feb.

In CML V, LLC v. Bax, No. 735, 2010 (Del. Sept. 6, 2011), the Delaware Supreme Court held that a creditor of an insolvent LLC, unlike a creditor of an insolvent corporation, does not possess standing to pursue derivative claims. CML, which had lent money to a jet leasing company that later became insolvent, brought a derivative action charging that the company’s officers had engaged in mismanagement and selfinterested transactions.

Generally speaking, the policy of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) is not to interfere with secured creditors, leaving them free to realize upon their security. While this makes sense in the abstract, the question that is most often posed by secured creditors is “what does this mean in a practical sense?  What exactly do I need to do to retrieve my secured asset?”

Perimeter Transportation Ltd. (Re), 2010 BCCA 509, on appeal from 2009 BCSC 1458

Century Services Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2010 SCC 60

Section 222(3) of the Excise Tax Act creates a deemed trust for unremitted GST, which operates despite any other act of Canada, except the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. However section 18.3(1) of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (the "CCAA") provides that any statutory deemed trust in favour of the Crown does not operate under the CCAA, subject to certain exceptions which do not mention GST.