In a High Court decision of 22 May 2017 Baker J rejected a proposal by a secured lender to write down a portion of a debtor couple's mortgage debt and warehouse half of the debt as future repayment of the warehoused part of the loan was not predicated on an ability to repay. Thus, the proposal was capable of creating circumstances amounting to insolvency at the end of the mortgage term in approximately 23 years.

Facts

The Irish Government has signed an Order giving the Cape Town Convention Alternative A insolvency remedy force of law in Ireland.

The Cape Town Convention creates an international uniform body of law applicable to interests in aircraft assets for the protection of financiers, lessors and conditional sellers and to establish basic remedies available to them under agreements relating to the aircraft assets.

From an economic perspective, especially in the current business environment, contractual freedom is the best legal method to satisfy the legitimate interests of individuals and to ensure the general benefit and, consequently, social progress. From this point of view, in any activity, every business is seeking to make a profit. Achieving this depends on a series of determinant factors as well as a certain number of risks which any business should assume when implementing its objectives.

In SPV Optimal Osus Limited -v- HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Ireland) Limited & Ors the Court of Appeal rejected an appeal of a High Court decision dismissing proceedings as being frivolous and vexatious and bound to fail on the basis that the proceedings against the defendants were contrary to public policy, void and unenforceable as a matter of law since the assignment of the right to litigate third party claims amou

In the case of In Re Dunne (A Debtor) [2017] IEHC 59, High Court, Baker J, 6 February 2017 the High Court refused an application by debtors under Section 115A of the Personal Insolvency Acts 2012 to 2015 to overturn a secured creditor's (PTSB) objection to a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA). The debtors had appealed from a Circuit Court decision upholding PTSB's objection.

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Even at first blush, it is apparent that arbitration and insolvency make strange bedfellows.

In two recent decisions the High Court considered the provisions of Section 115A(9) of the Personal Insolvency Acts 2012 to 2015 (The Acts). The Section provides that a Court can give effect to a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) despite it having been rejected by creditors. It was designed to enable a qualifying debtor to retain their principal private residence in certain circumstances.

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In Leahy v Bailey & ors [2016] IEHC 592, High Court, Keane J, 28 October 2016, the liquidator sought a declaration of restriction against the three respondent directors pursuant to Section 819(1) of the Companies Act 2014.

Facts

Suppose you were a German bank lending to a Spanish debtor under a loan agreement governed by German law. Once your Spanish debtor stops paying, the bank would have to obtain a German legal judgment and would then have to enforce it in Spain. Any measure to secure the debtor's assets in the meantime, is typically subject to the jurisdiction where the asset is located, or subject to lengthy recognition proceedings. Having to resort to local law measures usually puts foreign creditors in a worse-off position than local ones.