The District Court for the Southern District of New York in Lehman Brothers recently threw cold water on a growing body of cases that permit compensation of professional fees incurred by individual members of official committees of unsecured creditors.

As predicted, the court in Tokyo has ruled that Mt. Gox will be liquidated. An “Announcement of Commencement of Bankruptcy Proceedings” was posted overnight April 24 by the Japanese bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi on the Mt. Gox site to confirm that the company is officially in bankruptcy (liquidation) in Japan.  The Announcement also includes a “Frequently Asked Questions” section to give a very high level overview of the liquidation process.

A recent decision at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) brought to the fore the role of fairness opinions in solvent arrangement transactions. In Re ChampionIron Mines Limited (Champion) the court approved the arrangement but deemed the fairness opinion inadmissible on the basis that it failed to disclose the reasons underlying its conclusion.

On April 16, Mt. Gox’s civil rehabilitation proceeding in Tokyo (something similar to a U.S. Chapter 11) was dismissed and the initial stages of a bankruptcy liquidation under Japanese law began. An Interim Administrator (Nobuaki Kobaysahi) has been named until the Japanese court decides whether the liquidation will begin and whether a different Administrator replaces the Interim Administrator. How this situation came to be is an interesting tale.

Mt. Gox filed a motion requesting the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s approval of the form of the official notification of the May 6 recognition hearing as well as approving the service via email.  The motion also seeks to establish a deadline of seven days before that hearing for any party to object to the request for recognition of the Japanese insolvency case.  Additional notice would be provided by posting an approved form of notification on the Mt. Gox web site as well as at the Reddit.com site.

Tuesday evening, the Plaintiffs in the Illinois Class Action litigation filed motions with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas asking that court to terminate the temporary stay it recently granted to Mt. Gox. They also asked that Robert Marie Mark Karpeles (the Foreign Representative for Mt. Gox) be ordered to provide testimony under oath in the United States regarding the Chapter 15 filing.

Introduction

In Susi v. Bourke, 2014 O.J. No. 11

A Summary

In Susi v. Bourke, [2014] OJ No 11, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that when all of the directors of a corporation fail to comply with their fiduciary duties, none of them can seek a remedy for oppression.

On October 3, 2013, the Court of Appeal for Ontario issued two significant decisions1 on the interplay between provincial environmental remediation and federal insolvency orders. The cases are of interest to environmental and insolvency lawyers across Canada. They are equally of interest to taxpayers who foot remediation costs shifted through insolvency.

Background

An “Administration Charge” under the CCAA

The Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-36, as amended (“CCAA”) permits a court having jurisdiction over proceedings for the restructuring of an insolvent company to make certain orders, to secure payment of the fees of certain officials involved in those proceedings, including the Monitor of the insolvent company appointed for the restructuring proceeding.

A surprising judgment re the “Administration Charge”