In this article Leon Breakey explains some of the issues that can arise when an English bankruptcy order is issued and the debtor owns property in Scotland.
When an English debtor with an interest in heritable property in Scotland is made bankrupt under English law, a crucial question arises: how can the English bankruptcy order be enforced in Scotland? This article explores this issue, highlighting the potential risks for trustees and the solution provided by Section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986.
The Issue: English Bankruptcy Orders and Scottish Property
In Re Proex Logistics, 2025 ONSC 51, Justice Steele of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) recently made a number of holdings related to the process for trustees accepting claims in a bankruptcy and other parties seeking to challenge those decisions. The Court held that:
A recent decision of the Commercial Sheriff Court at Perth in the case of Priority Construction UK Limited v Advanced Material Processing Limited, reported at [2024] SC PER 48, has confirmed the position in relation to the proper basis for liquidation petitions to be brought against debtor companies. The moral of this story is that liquidation petitions should not be used to try to recover a validly disputed debt - something that all creditors and practitioners should be alert to.
The facts
Two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions demonstrate that the corporate attribution doctrine is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
In a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Poonian v. British Columbia (Securities Commission), the Court determined that while disgorgement orders made by the British Columbia Securities Commission (the “Commission”) survive bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (the “BIA”), administrative penalties may not.
"The law on 'knowing receipt' has perplexed judges and academics alike for several decades" – Lord Burrows (paragraph 99).
They say every man needs protection, they say that every man must fall.1
Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., No. 23-124
Today, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Bankruptcy Code does not allow a bankruptcy court to discharge claims against a non-debtor without the consent of affected claimants.
Introduction
TO BE OR NOT TO BE (SOLVENT) - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SINGAPORE, UK, US, AND AUSTRALIA ON RECOGNISING FOREIGN PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE UNCITRAL MODEL LAW PIERRE DZAKPASU, ANNE JESUDASON, FLORENCE LI The recent case of Ascentra Holdings, Inc v. SPGK Pte Ltd [2023] SGCA 32 (Ascentra) has drawn a line in the sand in the Singapore court's interpretation of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (UNCITRAL Model Law), as incorporated in the Third Schedule of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 (IRDA) to create the Singapore Model Law.