In Allco Funds Management Limited v Trust Co (Re Services) Ltd [2014] NSWSC 1251, an inter-company loan transaction was challenged by a receiver appointed by the secured creditor to one of the companies. Common directors were involved in the transaction. The issue was whether the directors breached their fiduciary duties entitling the company via the receiver to have the transaction set aside.
The background to the case
A debtor company can seek to have a statutory demand set aside if there is a genuine dispute as to the existence or amount of the debt, or the company has an offsetting claim.
Because the threshold for contesting a statutory demand is relatively low, a creditor may decide it is better to issue the statutory demand for the undisputed portion of the total debt after making an appropriate allowance for the amount of the total debt in dispute or the amount of the alleged offsetting claim.
When a company is facing short term financial difficulties the directors or shareholders may decide to make a loan to the company to pay wages.
On January 5, 2015, HM Treasury published the Bank Recovery and Resolution Order 2014 (“BRRO”) and the Banks and Building Societies (Depositor Preference and Priorities) Order 2014 (“BBSO”). The Banking Act 2009 (Restriction of Special Bail-in Provision, etc.) Order 2014 and the Banking Act 2009 (Mandatory Compensation Arrangements following Bail-in) Regulations 2014 were published in December 2014.
On December 19, 2014, the UK Insolvency Service reported that two former directors of Connaught Asset Management, Nigel Walter and Michael Anthony Davies, have both been disqualified from controlling or managing a company for a period of 9 and 7 years respectively. The former directors allowed the misuse of up to £106m of investor money by failing to review the progress on loans made with monies borrowed from funds and not ensuring the money was repaid to the fund following loan completion.
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Debts claimed in statutory demands must be due and payable to the creditor named in the statutory demand.
When disputing statutory demands it is common for debtor companies to argue an offsetting claim, so as to reduce or extinguish the amount claimed in the statutory demand.
For there to be a valid offsetting claim there must be ‘mutuality’, meaning that the legal capacities in which both the offsetting claim and the statutory demand debt are each claimed and owed must align.
A recent Victorian case has worrying implications for financiers and creditors.
A decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal in Vasudevan v Becon Constructions (Australia) Pty Ltd [2014] VSCA 14 has the potential to significantly broaden the power of a liquidator to attack a company transaction under section 588FDA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Act) where there are ‘indirect benefits’ to a director or close associate of a director of the company.
Obtain advice before you lodge a proof of debt or vote in a liquidation
Secured creditors should remember that submitting a proof of debt and voting in a liquidation may result in the loss of their security if they get it wrong.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales has delivered a timely reminder to secured creditors of a company in liquidation, where the secured creditor lost its security because it submitted a proof of debt for the full amount of its debt and voted on a poll at a creditor’s meeting for its full debt.
Dealing a major blow to the trustee’s efforts to recover fraudulent transfers on behalf of the bankruptcy estate of the company run by Bernard Madoff, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held in SIPC v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC1 that the Bankruptcy Code cannot be used to recover fraudulent transfers of funds that occur entirely outside the United States.
Facing the imminent bankruptcy of the federal Highway Trust Fund (the “HTF”) and the specter of delays and reductions in payments from the HTF to the States, the US Congress last week passed the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014, which extended federal surface transportation programs and funding through May 2015. We summarize below the key elements of the Act.