The Court of Appeal in 90 Nine Limited v Luxury Rentals NZ Limited [2019] NZCA 424 allowed an appeal from a creditor in respect of an application to liquidate the respondent over a failure to pay a statutory demand.
An application by New Zealand Life Care Limited (Life Care) for an order reversing the decision of the Official Assignee to reject its claim for $4.9m in the bankruptcy of Mr Harman was dismissed by the High Court in New Zealand Life Care Ltd v Official Assignee [2018] NZHC 17. Life Care said that Mr Harman had guaranteed loans from Life Care to his companies, but accepted that it did not have a written guarantee signed by Mr Harman. Instead it relied on Mr Harman's admission of the guarantee in affidavits made after his adjudication.
Ms P was on her way to bankruptcy. Mr W, a friend and adviser, helped her to gift funds from an inheritance to a family trust. Mr W moved the funds around his own accounts (including his family trust account and business accounts). Ms P was then adjudicated bankrupt.
The director and shareholders of Rayland Investment Ltd (in liq) (the Company) applied to terminate the Company's liquidation. The Court found it appropriate to make that order. At issue, however, was the remuneration claimed by Mr Norrie, the Company's liquidator, which the Court reduced from $39,128 to $15,559.
Mr Norrie was not entitled to remuneration for unnecessary preliminary steps such as consenting to appointment by affidavit and carrying out property searches.
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.