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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.

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 section: Section 553C of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (“Act”) provides for a statutory set-off between an insolvent company and a party seeking to have a debt or claim admitted in the company’s winding up.

The recent Supreme Court of New South Wales decision of Fitz Jersey Pty Ltd v Atlas Construction Group Pty Ltd (in liq)1 clarifies that s 588FF of the Corporations Act permits an assignee of a liquidator’s voidable transaction claim to trace a company’s property or proceeds for the purposes of the assignee’s recovery proceedings.

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.

The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in Canada v.Canada North Group Inc.[1] provided much needed clarity regarding the order of priority for unremitted source deductions in restructuring proceedings.

Suppliers and subcontractors in the construction industry should be mindful of a recent unreported decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In Carillion Canada Inc. (Re), the Court held that an automatic cash sweep of Carillion’s Ontario bank account rid the funds of their trust character leaving Carillion’s subcontractors in Canada with no proprietary claim to $22 million sitting in an overseas bank account maintained with a global bank (the “Bank”).

This was first published in the LexisNexis Insolvency Law Bulletin (Vol. 21, No. 5 & 6).

This article is co-authored by Justin Ward of Litigation Capital Management and Marcel Fernandes of 12 Wentworth Selborne Chambers.