Key Takeaways

The Supreme Court of Canada's ("SCC") recent decision in Peace River Hydro Partners v.

Canadian tech companies have entered uncharted waters, with a range of factors threatening to produce a liquidity crunch for many of them.

For years, the tech sector enjoyed record volumes of venture capital investment fueled by low interest rates, an inflow of foreign and corporate investment, and the collective desire to create a vibrant tech ecosystem in Canada. As the economic tides have changed, with climbing interest rates and a looming recession, tech companies are facing an increasingly tough fundraising environment.

2022 was an unprecedented year in insolvency practice. For as long as anyone can remember, there have always been several large corporate insolvency filings with national scope in each calendar year that hits the front page of the papers. But in 2022, there wasn’t even one.

Many cryptocurrency lenders have declared bankruptcy. These loss events are indicators of the significant losses the cryptocurrency market has experienced this year.

For investors who have suffered, an important consideration is how to capitalize on these losses. Accordingly, this article will analyze the recent Celsius Network (“Celsius”) bankruptcy and the tax strategy of writing off bad debt.

The Celsius Bankruptcy

En 2022, le marché canadien du capital d’investissement privé a connu plusieurs développements importants qui ont eu des répercussions sur l’activité transactionnelle dans tous les secteurs. À quelles grandes tendances peut-on s’attendre en 2023?

The Ontario Fraudulent Conveyances Act¹ (the FCA), a concise statute of long-standing that traces its history to an English statute of 1571, is intended to prevent conveyances of property made with the intent to defeat, hinder, delay or defraud “creditors or others” of their just and lawful actions, suits, debts, accounts, damages, penalties or forfeitures.

In the case of Bankruptcy Hanson, 2022 ONSC 6591,^[1] the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dealt with access to insurance proceeds in the case of a bankrupt professional. The key questions to be decided by the Court were:

The Alberta Court of King's Bench (the Court) has confirmed that the abandonment and reclamation obligations owed to the Orphan Well Association (OWA) and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) rank in priority to claims of municipalities for unpaid property taxes in insolvency proceedings.

Flight v. Leblanc 2022 ONCA 831, argued by Lucy Sun and Jason Squire of Lerners, involved an interesting intersection of limitations law and insolvency practice. We were retained by the respondent on the appeal of a summary judgment motion dismissing the action (we did not act at first instance).