On December 1, 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Re Indalex Limited, 2011 ONCA 265, which we summarized here.
The Supreme Court has announced it will hear the appeal in the high profile Indalex Ltd., Re. The appeal is of great interest to the commercial litigation, insolvency and pension bar. Its outcome will be closely watched and may have dramatic impact on Canadian corporate reorganizations.
Background
The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal yesterday in Indalex Limited (Re). This is an appeal from the Ontario Court of Appeal (2011 ONCA 265). Please see our Financial Services and Banking E-news Bulletin dated April 25, 2011, for a detailed summary of the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Today, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear an appeal of the unanimous decision rendered last April by the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) in Re Indalex Limited (Indalex). According to many commentators, the Indalex case turns accepted law on the priority of debtor in possession (DIP) and working capital security on its head and introduces new concerns for employers about how to properly discharge their sometimes conflicting duties under corporate law and under pension law.
What role does business common sense play in the interpretation of commercial contracts? This issue was recently addressed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in Rainy Sky S.A. v. Kookmin Bank. The answer: “where a term of a contract is open to more than one interpretation, it is generally appropriate to adopt the interpretation which is most consistent with business common sense”. Since there is currently some uncertainty in Canada on the point, Rainy Sky is an important case to consider.
Decision
A number of commentators have written articles about Part IV of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), which deals with recognizing and enforcing foreign insolvency proceedings, however little has been written about the treatment of corporate groups in this context. Part IV of the CCAA deals with entities on an individual basis, and how to deal with corporate groups is not well addressed in international insolvency legislation.
Sunrise, sunset. Perhaps a matchmaker would have helped. The saga of the dispute between Ventas, Inc. and Health Care Property Investors, Inc. arose five years ago when Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust’s "board of trustees determined that a strategic sale process of its assets would be beneficial to its unitholders, thus effectively putting Sunrise ‘in play’ on the public markets" (per Blair J.A. for the Ontario Court of Appeal) in Ventas, Inc. v.
The Indalex decision, released by the Ontario Court of Appeal earlier this year, gave priority to pension plan members over other secured creditors that had advanced funds to keep Indalex from bankruptcy. This case came as a surprise to many practitioners and may have far-reaching implications for pension plan administrators and creditors alike.&nbs
A recent Alberta appellate decision establishes that a trustee in bankruptcy may sell a franchise agreement to a third party, in spite of objections by the franchisor, under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA). The Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision in Ford Motor Company of Canada Ltd v Welcome Ford Sales Ltd contains three important messages for franchisors: