In order for an application for business rescue to successfully suspend commenced liquidation proceedings, it must be served on the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), together with all affected persons in terms of the Companies Act, No 71 of 2008 (Act). This position was confirmed in the Gauteng Local Division’s decision handed down on 10 March 2016.

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Lagoon Beach Hotel v Lehane (235/2015) [2015] ZA SCA 2010 (21 December 2015) recently considered the granting of a preservation order to a foreign trustee and the recognition of a foreign trustee by our courts in exceptional circumstances.

One thing we have learnt from the hit series ‘Murder She Wrote’, other than the fact that the star of the show Angela Lansbury never aged during its 12 years of airing, is that it is often the one closest to us that does the most harm.

Judgment of the Court of Appeal of Porto of February 15, 2016

The restructuring of financially distressed companies is on the increase globally. In line with this international trend is Chapter 6 of the Companies Act, No 71 of 2008 (Act) which introduced business rescue into the South African corporate landscape.

Although business rescue has brought a much needed and long overdue alternative to liquidation for businesses in distress, it is also responsible for many points of contention. The most pertinent of these is currently the general moratorium found in s133 of the Act.

A credit institution appealed the ruling that approved the agreement claiming that the creditors meeting had allowed the presence and vote by a city council that, in its opinion, did not have such right because it was the holder of 100% of the share capital of the insolvent party.

This ruling resolved an issue originating from a personal and joint and several guarantee granted by two companies to secure the obligations assumed by a Dutch company under a junior financing agreement. In light of the Dutch company's default on one of its payments under that agreement, the creditor companies sued the debtor, and the court issued a resolution ordering the debtor company to pay the amount claimed.

Cuatrecasas, Gonrcalves Pereira has advised GRUPO EMPRESARIAL ALCO on submitting and processing the early composition agreement with the company's creditors, attaining the approval of the competent court within 10 months of the company's declaration of insolvency.

A company's insolvency is requested by three of its creditors whose credits originated from a syndicated financing agreement signed with other credit institutions. The three creditors seeking the insolvency request that they all be recognized a general privilege of 50% of their credits and that the entirety of their respective credits be considered in calculating this general privilege, excluding subordinated credits only.

This ruling resolves the financial creditors' challenge to the approval of a refinancing agreement extending the deferral stipulated and the modification of the margins added to the Euribor to them. As grounds for their opposition, they claim that the 75% majority of the financial liabilities necessary to extend the reduction of the applicable margin whereby, in their opinion, such reduction entailed debt relief was not present.