Passing the Golden Thread through the Eye of a Needle In Singularis 1 , as is well known, the Privy Council Board considered the doctrine of modified universalism whereby, broadly speaking, a court will give such assistance as it can to foreign insolvency proceedings, as is consistent with local law and local public policy, so as to ensure that a company's assets are distributed under a single system; and held by a majority that there is a common law power to assist a foreign insolvency, although the power could not be used to enable foreign liquidators to do something that they could not d
On 10 September 2021, Chief Justice Smellie QC in Re Premier Assurance Group SPC Ltd. (in Official Liquidation) sanctioned a streamlined adjudication process proposed by the joint official liquidators ("JOLs") of Premier Assurance Group SPC Ltd (in Official Liquidation) (the "Company"), circumventing the requirement for thousands of participants to lodge separate proofs of debt in an insolvent liquidation.
The Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey did not introduce emergency insolvency legislation as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and do not presently have measures equivalent to those found in the UK’s Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act, 2020 (“CIGA”).
Grand Peace Group Holdings Limited [2021] HKCFI 2361 (Date of Decision: 24 August 2021)
Up Energy Development Group Limited [2021] HKCFI 2595 (Date of Decision: 31 August 2021)
Introduction
The vast majority of listed companies in Hong Kong are incorporated offshore, with a corporate structure that the operating and asset owning subsidiaries in Mainland China are held through intermediate subsidiaries incorporated in offshore jurisdictions such as BVI and Cayman Islands etc.
Last month, leading litigation funder and asset management firm Burford posed questions on major legal developments in the offshore markets over the past 18 months and economic trends that will play out in the markets post-pandemic to leading litigators, insolvency practitioners and financial professionals in the region.
In today's global economy, cross-border structures, frequently including an offshore entity, have become familiar to office holders around the world.
However, the territorial limits of a court’s powers can mean that such structures present obstacles with which office holders attempting to conduct an orderly and efficient winding up of a debtor's affairs need to familiarise themselves.
The principle of modified universalism mandates that, within the constraints of public policy, courts should co-operate across jurisdictions.
The High Court has, for the first time since the introduction of the legislation in June 2020, refused to sanction a cross-class cram-down restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act. In In the matter of Hurricane Energy Plc [2021] EWHC 1759 (Ch), the court rejected a plan supported by bondholders because it had not been shown that the opposing shareholders had no better alternative prospects (i.e., the ‘no worse off condition’ had not been met).
Samson Paper Company Limited (In Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation) [2021] HKCFI 2151(date of decision: 20 July 2021)
China All Access (Holdings) Limited [2021] HKCFI 1842 (date of decision: 21 June 2021)
Introduction
Introduction1
In order to obtain a bankruptcy order upon either a creditors', or a bankrupt's own, bankruptcy application, it must be shown that a debtor: