In McGoey (Re), 2019 ONSC 80, Justice Penny of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found trusts over two properties held by a bankrupt were void as shams. In his decision, Justice Penny noted that had he not found the trusts to be sham trusts, he would still have set them aside as fraudulent conveyances, making us ask: “what is the difference between a sham trust and a fraudulent conveyance?”
1. Introduction
With the growing concern over the environmental impacts of commercial activity, provinces have enacted and expanded environmental legislation in order to hold companies accountable for the costs of remediating the environmental harm they cause. However, regulators have struggled with how to hold companies accountable for environmental harm when they become insolvent. For many years, clean-up obligations have been treated as unsecured claims lacking priority over secured claims. On January 31, 2019, the Supreme Court o
The Alberta Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal brought by three municipalities (the “Municipalities”) seeking status as secured creditors entitled to special priority for payment of linear property taxes.
The Alberta Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal brought by three municipalities (the "Municipalities") seeking status as secured creditors entitled to special priority for payment of linear property taxes.
In Northern Sunrise County v Virginia Hills Oil Corp, 2019 ABCA 61, the primary issue was whether the Municipal Government Act ("MGA") grants to an Alberta municipality a special lien for linear property taxes, which lien ranks senior in priority to contractual security interests if the tax debtor is not bankrupt or subject to other insolvency proceedings.
Background
The Defendant was a dentist who had executed a personal guarantee on July 7, 2011 in favour of the Plaintiff (the "Bank") in order to secure payment of the indebtedness of the Defendant's professional corporation. The Bank made a demand for payment on the guarantee, and subsequently brought an action against the Defendant (the "First Action").The Bank was successful on a motion for summary judgment and judgment was granted against the Defendant.
The Bottom Line
KERPs (Key Employee Retention Plans) and KEIPs (Key Employee Incentive Plans), otherwise referred to as “pay to stay” compensation plans, are commonly offered by employers to incent key employees to remain with the company during an insolvency restructuring proceeding when so-called “key employees” may be tempted to find more stable employment elsewhere.
The Alberta Court of Queen's Bench has issued several conflicting decisions on whether a stay of proceedings in an insolvency matter should be temporarily lifted to allow enforcement of a contractual right to immediately replace an operator of oil and gas assets in the event of the operator's insolvency.
With the growing concern over the environmental impacts of commercial activity, provinces have enacted and expanded environmental legislation in order to hold companies accountable for the costs of remediating the environmental harm they cause. However, regulators have struggled with how to hold companies accountable for environmental harm when they become insolvent. For many years, clean-up obligations have been treated as unsecured claims lacking priority over secured claims.