A private member's bill, Bill C-372, was introduced on 17 October 2017 with proposed amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act. The Bill seeks to protect retired workers whose pensions and group insurance plans are at risk if their previous employer goes bankrupt or undergoes restructuring. The Bill would provide for priority status for claims in respect of underfunded pension plans, as well as claims arising as a result of an employer terminating its participation in a group insurance plan.

Good evening,

Below are this week’s summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal.

Topics this week included personal injury, family law, employment law, property law, mortgages, bankruptcy and insolvency and extensions of time to appeal.

Have a nice weekend.

In our update this month we take a look at three cases that provide helpful clarification from the courts on issues that will be of interest to the insolvency and fraud industry - the key message from each case confirms:

Defendant's threat of insolvency did not prevent adjudicator's decision being enforced.

Registering a financing statement under the Ontario PPSA[1] to perfect a security interest is a key means of protecting a secured creditor’s priority over collateral. It is important for secured creditors to be cognizant however that there are situations where other claims that are not subject to traditional registration requirements may still trump a secured creditor’s registered security interest.

The recent decision in ITB Marine Group Ltd. v. Northern Transportation Company Limited, 2017 BCSC 2007 ["ITB"] confirms the priority of pension claims in the insolvency context. The decision will be of interest to practitioners involved in priority disputes between secured creditors and beneficiaries of statutory deemed trusts, particularly those arising out of pension legislation.

Joint venture partners commonly enter into operating agreements which grant operators a security interest, referred to as an operator’s lien. Operator’s liens are, for the most part, consensual and contractual security interests subject to the provisions of the Personal Property Security Act, RSA 2000, c P-7 (the “PPSA”) and the priority regime set out therein.

Srie sur l'insolvabilit des dtaillants au Canada : Le point de vue des fournisseurs

Linc Rogers et Aryo Shalviri

What rights do subcontractors, bonding companies and owners have to project funds when a general contractor is insolvent?

RCR International, Inc. (“RCR”), along with its wholly-owned subsidiary, has filed a petition under Chapter 15 in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Lead Case No. 18-10112).

Alberta Energy has increasingly been targeting insolvent lessees and the historical gas cost allowances claimed by those insolvent companies.

Alberta Energy deducts allowances for capital and operating costs and custom processing fees incurred and paid in Alberta for compressing, gathering and processing its royalty share of gas and gas products through the Crown share of allowable costs. Accordingly, there are three allowances available from the Crown: capital cost, operating cost and custom processing fee allowance.