The High Court recently issued its ruling in the matter of Re Avanti Communications Limited (in administration). It is the first major case since the pivotal 2005 House of Lords decision of Re Spectrum Plus  to examine the characteristics of fixed and floating charges.

Key points

In this issue:

Welcome to our corporate and commercial disputes update, a new bi-annual publication in which we summarise some of the most significant cases over the last six months or so in the corporate and commercial dispute resolution market:

The Supreme Court’s decision in Sevilleja v Marex Financial Ltd [2020] UKSC 31 of 15 July 2020 provided much needed clarity on the scope of the rule against “reflective loss”.

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the "Bill") was published on 20 May 2020. The Bill introduces a new type of ‘moratorium’ whereby eligible companies can take 40 days to restructure without the threat of enforcement action from creditors.

CEFC Shanghai International Group Limited (in Liquidation in the Mainland of the People’s Republic of China) [2020] HKCFI 167 (date of judgement 13 January 2020)

This is the first case in which the Hong Kong Court granted a recognition order to administrators of a PRC company appointed by a PRC Court. The case also considered whether a garnishee order nisi should be made absolute if a foreign bankruptcy order is made after the service of the garnishee order nisi.

Background

It is over 10 years since the House of Lords decision in the case of Sharp v Thomson (1997 SC (HL) 44) threw a judicial cat amongst the pigeons of property and insolvency law in Scotland. The House of Lords, overturning decisions of both the Outer and Inner Houses of the Court of Session, decided that ownership of a property passed unencumbered by, in this case, a crystallised floating charge, even though the disposition of that property (which had been delivered before the floating charge crystallised) had not yet been registered in the Property Register.