The first case has been decided under Australia’s statutory powers to set aside “creditor defeating dispositions”.
As Robert Burns wrote, freedom and whisky may ‘gang thegither’ but it is fraud and wine making a fine pairing in the news recently by way of two separate examples of dishonest wine investment schemes.
Global Wine Exchange Limited
The first concerns Global Wine Exchange Limited (“Global”), which was wound-up in the public interest on 22 March 2022 following abuse of more than £1.9m of clients’ funds in a wine investment scheme.
Aviation news this week reports that Jota Aviation has an administration on the cards - big news for the premier league clubs (understood to include Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United) who rely on its services to jet them between their all important games.
Jota's administration isn't noted on Companies House or the public Court records just yet but they have cancelled all flights, suspended all services and offered it's three freight aircraft up for sale - all certainly indicative of an intention to cease trading.
In its recent decision in Walton v ACN 004 410 833 Limited (formerly Arrium Limited) (in liquidation) [2022] HCA 3 (Walton), the High Court of Australia held, in a split decision, that the mandatory public examination power contained in section 596A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act) could be used by eligible applicants to examine directors and other officers of a company in external administration, including senior management, external administrators and trustees, about the company’s affairs for the broad purposes of enforcing and promoting comp
The Financial Conduct Authority has announced this week that Insolvency Practitioners at Teneo Financial Advisory Limited have been appointed as special administrators following Sberbank CIB's entry into special administration.
In a further development to cross-border insolvency cooperation between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the Hong Kong Court has issued a letter of request to a Mainland Court requesting recognition and assistance of Hong Kong liquidators appointed over a Cayman company, under the mutual recognition arrangement introduced on 14 May 2021 (the “Arrangement“, see our previous update here
Restrictions on the issuing of statutory demands and winding-up petitions are due to come to an end at the end of the month having first been implemented by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) in March 2020.
As of 1 April 2022, the restrictions will cease to apply and creditors will be free once again to issue winding-up petitions against debtors who are unable to pay sums owed.
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the High Court was right to restrict the assistance an English court could give to a Russian trustee in bankruptcy at common law, refusing to allow immoveable property situated in England to be administered by the trustee as part of the foreign bankruptcy proceedings: Kireeva v Bedzhamov [2022] EWCA Civ 35.
The case of Re Premier FX Limited (in Liquidation) highlights the potentially dire consequences for a creditor who does not file their proof of debt by a set deadline - and makes clear that mistakenly forgetting to do so is not a sufficient excuse.
Premier FX was in business as a foreign exchange dealer and money transfer agent. Financial advice was sought when it became clear to the (newly appointed) directors that the claims received from customers exceed the balance of the funds held by the company.
On 23 February 2022, WBHO Australia Pty Ltd and 17 other companies in the Probuild group (Probuild, or the Group), entered voluntary administration in Australia. Probuild is one of the largest construction groups in Australia, working on many large office, residential and resources related construction projects across the country.