In Power Rental Op Co Australia, LLC v Forge Group Power Pty Ltd (in liq) (receivers and managers appointed) the New South Wales Court of Appeal recently considered the 'fixtures' exclusion in Australia's Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA).

Power Rental agreed to lease turbines to Forge Group for two years.  Shortly after the lease began, Forge Group entered voluntary administration.

In this Australian case, a major creditor of the company in question alleged that it was involved in phoenix activity and offered to fund a public examination of the director provided that the creditor's solicitors would act for the liquidators in that examination.  The liquidators refused the offer and, in response, the creditor applied to have the liquidators removed.

Liquidators entitled to a fair fee

The New South Wales Court of Appeal recently handed down an important judgment on the remuneration of registered liquidators.

In Fielding v The Burnden Group Limited (BGL) the English High Court dismissed an application for the liquidator to be held personally liable for the costs of a successful appeal against the rejection of a proof of debt.

In the UK case of CFL Finance Limited v Rubin and Ors, a creditor had sought to make an individual bankrupt. A creditors' meeting was held.  At the meeting, a proposal for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement was approved by the creditor that held the largest portion of debt (and therefore 90.43% of the vote).  The other two creditors voted against the proposal.

In this English case, a secured lender (Nationwide) appointed administrators to three companies. However, before appointing, Nationwide had:

Summary: The Insolvency Rules 2016 will come into force on 6 April 2017. This article highlights some of the main areas of change.

The long awaited Insolvency Rules 2016 (the “2016 Rules”) were laid before Parliament on 25 October 2016, and will come into force on 6 April 2017. The Insolvency Rules 1986 (the “1986 Rules”) and all amending legislation will be repealed. The 2016 Rules aim to:

Another company being investigated by the FMA and the SFO for allegedly operating a Ponzi scheme, Hansa Limited, was placed into liquidation by the High Court in late November 2016.  Those investors who lost money may be interested to learn that one of the liquidators appointed to Hansa, Mr Damien Grant, is a convicted fraudster, who had also given evidence to a High Court judge and jury that was subsequently 'discredited', that an accessory to the frauds was the originator and brains behind the frauds.  Proposed licensing of insolvency practitioners may well exclude those with di

The liquidators of two Cayman Island companies obtained orders under s 195(3) of the Bermudan Companies Act 1981 for PwC, as the companies' auditor, to provide information and documents to the liquidators. PwC decided to appeal but, in the meantime, did US$250,000 of preparatory work necessary to enable compliance, if required, with the orders.

As a result of the appeal, both orders were set aside. In PricewaterhouseCoopers v SAAD Investments Co Ltd & Anor (Bermuda) PwC applied to recover from the liquidators the costs of preparing to comply with the orders.

The latest development in what has been a long-running (and expensive) cross-border insolvency proceeding involving Nortel (see our June 2015 and September 2015 legal updates for previous instalments) is a settlement between: