A recent Alberta case continues the development of a line of cases at the intersection of environmental protection and bankruptcy and insolvency law in Canada.

Further to our previous article, which can be found here, we consider the key issues with which the Court faced, the technical legal analysis underpinning this judgment and our view on what this may mean for energy suppliers, and the sector as a whole, looking forward.

Background - what was the application and why was it needed?

In the recent decision of Chin v Beauty Express Canada Inc. (“Chin”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice considered the impact of an employee’s service with a prior employer on the employee’s entitlement to reasonable notice of termination.

Once hailed as having the potential to add £5.7 billion to the UK economy in 2016, Northern business leaders operating in the tech space met to discuss how best to unlock the sector's growth potential. As part of CyberFest, Womble Bond Dickinson, alongside a host of tech experts and business leaders, aimed to tackle the issue head-on in an insightful roundtable.

The long, long awaited Supreme Court Judgment in the Sequana case is finally here. Firstly, for those who may have forgotten what the Supreme Court was grappling with, the issue was 'whether the trigger for the directors’ duty to consider creditors is merely a real risk of, as opposed to a probability of or close proximity to, insolvency'. 

A recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal invalidated an arbitration and forum selection clause in a commercial agreement in favour of having a dispute between the debtor and its former customer adjudicated within a receivership proceeding.

The Insolvency Service has reported the first disqualifications under new legislation introduced to tackle the practice of directors dissolving companies in order to evade debts.

Reverse vesting orders (or “RVOs”) have become an increasingly popular and useful tool for maximizing recovery in complex insolvencies in Canada, particularly in circumstances where traditional alternatives of asset sales or restructuring plans are not effective or practical. RVOs are very attractive to purchasers of distressed businesses because they can efficiently preserve the value of permits, tax losses and other assets which cannot be easily transferred to a purchaser through an asset transaction.

On December 10, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) rendered its decision in Montréal (City) v.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, temporary provisions were put in place under the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 ("CIGA") to allow businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic breathing space from the threat of winding up action. Those restrictions will expire on 30 September 2021.