It was far from a secret that a veritable smorgasbord of phased changes to insolvency law were coming in on 1 October. The legal and insolvency press has been riddled with it, and frankly the flavours were all a bit predictable. The commentators falling over themselves to ask mundane questions such as “are you ready for…?” and “what will happen now…?” are really just asking “we are really up to date on the new law, aren’t we brilliant?”; of course you are, but you’re not getting any marks for originality.
The news in January of this year that the government planned to increase the bankruptcy petition threshold to £5,000 (subject to parliamentary scrutiny) from 1 October was greeted with mixed reaction. On the one hand, it was welcomed in that the threshold of £750 which had been in place since 1986 was wildly out of date.
Over the past 15 years or so, one of the most commonly recurring themes in my practice has been advising both insolvency practitioners and directors on the prospects of legal proceedings being pursued for breach of director duties and/or wrongful trading. Very often the two claims are put together for the purposes of an actual or threatened claim, and very often sitting behind the scenes as well is a possible investigation and/or claim that one or more directors should be disqualified.
Nortel Networks Corporation (Re), 2015 ONSC 2987
Au début de 2015, les sociétés 9171665 Canada Ltd. et Connacher Oil and Gas Limited (collectivement, « Connacher ») ont présenté à la Cour du Banc de la Reine de l’Alberta (la « Cour ») une demande d’ordonnance finale en vertu de l’article 192 de la Loi canadienne sur les sociétés par actions (la « LCSA ») en vue de l’approbation d’un plan d’arrangement visant la restructuration de Connacher (l’« Arrangement »). Le 2 avril 2015, le juge C.M.
In early 2015, 9171665 Canada Ltd. and Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd. (together Connacher) applied to the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench (Court) for a final order pursuant to section 192 of the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) for the approval of a plan of arrangement to restructure Connacher (Arrangement). On April 2, 2015, Justice C.M. Jones rejected Connacher's restructuring proposal for the reasons set out below.
TORONTO (May 15, 2015) - On May 12, 2015, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and U.S. Bankruptcy Court delivered an unprecedented joint ruling in the multi-jurisdictional dispute over the allocation of US$7.3-billion raised from the sale of the Nortel Networks global business units and patent portfolio.
At dispute was how to divide Nortel’s estate between bondholders, pensioners, suppliers and former employees of the parent company in Canada and its U.S. and European subsidiaries.
Most people who deal in property regularly will be very aware of the risk of acquiring a property for less than its true value if it turns out that the seller falls into some sort of insolvent procedure after the sale. This “undervalue” concern will often be front of mind if it is known that the seller is in a distressed situation, e.g. their lender is threatening to take possession. In some cases the ‘look back period’ for an insolvency practitioner taking office over an insolvent seller’s affairs can be as long as 5 years.
Applicants who seek ex parte relief under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) have an obligation to make full and fair disclosure of all material facts to the court.
On August 19, 2014, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice [Commercial List] (Ontario Court) released an important decision regarding the ability of unsecured bondholders to assert a claim for “post-filing” interest in proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) (CCAA). The CCAA is Canada’s principal statute for the restructuring of large insolvent corporations and is similar in effect to Chapter 11 of theUnited States Bankruptcy Code (Bankruptcy Code).