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Pantiles Investments Limited & Anor v Winckler [2019] EWHC 1298 (Ch)

Background

The Liquidator of the Pantiles Investments Limited (Company) brought a claim (among others) for fraudulent trading against its former director, Ms Winckler. The claim related to a property transaction involving Ms Winkler, an associate (Mr Goldbart) and the Company. In summary, the transaction was as follows:

The judicial managers of offshore oil and gas group Swiber have announced a restructuring plan for the company – which includes handing over shares to its professional services providers in part-payment of fees.

Judicial managers Bob Yap Cheng Ghee, Ong Pang Thye and Tay Puay Cheng of KPMG published the plan on 7 May, urging creditors to vote in favour to avoid Swiber’s liquidation.

Hong Kong’s restructuring scene is one of the most cross-border in the world, with three-quarters of its listed companies incorporated offshore and most restructurings having a mainland China connection. But the territory still lacks a statutory regime for cross-border recognition – as recently brought into focus in the restructuring of Singaporean engineering company CW Group. What does this mean for international insolvencies in the region?

EY's Hunter Kelly and Alan Hudson have been appointed administrators over UK construction services company Interserve, hours after it failed to secure shareholder approval for a restructuring plan.  

Kelly and Hudson were appointed over Interserve Plc, the holding company for the Interserve Group, on 15 March after the plan failed to win approval at a shareholders' general meeting earlier the same day. 

Last year the Technology and Construction Court (TCC) held that a company in liquidation cannot refer a dispute to adjudication in circumstances where there are claims by a company in liquidation and cross claims by the other party1.

It looks like 2019 won't be the new start many had hoped for. With large high street retailers already teetering on the edge after a disappointing Christmas and the government still up in arms about the B word, the country's commercial real estate market is looking more and more uncertain.

Singapore’s new restrictions on ipso facto clauses are welcome news to the local restructuring community, and a strong step towards establishing it as one of the region’s premier restructuring hubs. But how will these restrictions affect innocent counterparties and existing commercial contracts, ask partner Guan Feng Chen and associate Jonathan Tang at Morgan Lewis Stamford?

New restrictions on ipso facto clauses

From time to time the statutory rights available to parties to construction contracts appears to come into conflict with other sets of provisions that also claim to govern the same areas of dispute. Perhaps the best known such clash, between adjudication and the effect of insolvency, was that explored in the Scottish case of Melville Dundas Limited (in Receivership) v George Wimpey UK Limited[1] in 2007.

On 17 December 2015, the Ministry of Justice made a final decision to end the Insolvency Litigation exemption from the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LAPSO) (see

In May 2018, Mothercare and Carluccio's became the latest in an increasingly long line of high street names to propose Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVAs) involving significant site closures and rent reductions. On 31 May, 91% of unsecured creditors approved the Carluccio's CVA, and the following day Mothercare's creditors followed suit (although that was not the case with all of its subsidiaries, as discussed below). Next in line according to recent reports are House of Fraser and then Homebase, following the latter's acquisition for £1 by retail restructuring specialists Hilco.