The New South Wales Court of Appeal recently handed down an important judgment relating to the composition of classes in a creditors' scheme of arrangement. In First Pacific Advisors LLC v Boart Longyear Limited, the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed an appeal brought by First Pacific Advisors LLC (FPA). The appeal was against an order made under s 411 of the Corporations Act 2011 convening meetings of creditors of Boart Longyear Limited (BLL) and several associated companies, to consider and if it saw fit, agree to two schemes of arrangements (one relating to
In Fielding v The Burnden Group Limited (BGL) the English High Court dismissed an application for the liquidator to be held personally liable for the costs of a successful appeal against the rejection of a proof of debt.
The New Zealand and UK Arbitration Acts generally require court proceedings to be stayed if the parties have agreed to resolve disputes through arbitration.
In a recent address to the Insolvency Lawyers Association, the new Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, discussed briefly the effect of that statutory stay upon winding-up petitions.
In our June 2016 update, we discussed the Court of Appeal's decisions in Madsen-Ries v Petera[2016] NZCA 103, Calvert v Reynolds [2016] NZCA 151, and Petterson v Browne [2016] NZCA 189. In all three cases leave was sought to appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave was granted to the applicant companies in Petterson v Browne, but declined in all other cases. 
The English High Court in Powertrain Ltd, Re [2015] EWHC B26 considered the issue of whether a liquidator should be authorised to effect further distributions in favour of a company's known creditors without regard to possible further claims that could emerge against the company.
The Court noted that there is a balance to be struck between the desirability of distributing assets to known creditors sooner rather than later and the potential injustice of leaving someone who has a valid claim with no effective remedy.
In Stojkov v Kamal [2015] NZHC 2513 a creditor, Mr Stokjov, gave notice to the appointed liquidator, Mr Kamal, for a meeting of creditors to be called. Mr Kamal did not call the meeting and maintained that the notice was given out of time. Mr Stokjov reasonably pointed out that this was plainly incorrect. Mr Kamal, despite clearly being in breach of his duty, still refused to call the meeting and later claimed (quite irrelevantly) that the cost of the meeting was not justified.
The English case Webster & Anor v Mackay is an appeal against a refusal to annul or rescind bankruptcy orders. The appeal was based on the assertion that the petition debt was not for a liquidated sum as required under section 267(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986. The debtors were obliged, as evidenced by a promissory note, to repay a loan of £200,000 to Mr Mackay. However, Mr Mackay also alleged a repudiatory breach of the loan agreement due to the failure of the debtors to provide accounts.
The UK Supreme Court recently considered the scope of the following tests for whether a company is unable to pay its debts (as set out in section 123(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986):
- The company is unable to pay its debts as they fall due (the "cash-flow test") and
- The value of a company's assets is less than the amount of its liabilities, taking into account its contingent and prospective liabilities (the "balance-sheet test").
The Supreme Court confirmed that:
In Hutchins v Edwards [2013] NZHC 336, the High Court declined an application for an adjournment by a debtor who sought further time to liquidate property in order to pay a judgment debt.
In a recent High Court decision, a bank (B) applied to appoint liquidators to the TPS Asset Trust and TPS Asset No2 Trust (Trusts). The defendants had guaranteed loans borrowed from B by their company, both personally and in their capacity as trustees of the Trusts.
The defendants had been found guilty of fraud, tax evasion and attempting to pervert the course of justice in August 2012. In July 2012 the defendants had also been adjudicated bankrupt and their company had been placed in liquidation.