Introduction
In decisions delivered on August 24 2015 and October 7 2015 the Royal Courts of Guernsey and Jersey, respectively, held that where the affairs of two insolvent companies (incorporated in Jersey and Guernsey, respectively) are so intermingled that the expense of unravelling them would adversely affect distributions to creditors, the companies may be treated as a single entity.
INTRODUCTION
The Royal Court of Guernsey has taken the welcome step of dedicating specific court time to company and insolvency matters.
THE PRACTICE DIRECTION
A Carey Olsen regulatory team consisting of Guernsey partner Mark Dunster and associate Luke Sayer, have had a significant success for their client, a leading financial services business (the “Liquidator” or “Applicant”), by successfully making an application for the restoration of a Guernsey company – previously a property holding company (the “Company”) - pursuant to the Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008, as amended (the “Companies Law”).
THE ISSUE
1 / FEBRUARY 2016 | Guernsey Insolvency Law Consultation BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS CAYMAN ISLANDS GUERNSEY JERSEY CAPE TOWN LONDON SINGAPORE CAREYOLSEN.COM FEBRUARY 2016 RESTRUCTURING & INSOLVENCY GUERNSEY INSOLVENCY LAW CONSULTATION 2 / FEBRUARY 2016 | Guernsey Insolvency Law Consultation INTRODUCTION On 11 February 2016, the Guernsey Commerce and Employment Department published a consultation response document to set out the proposals the Department is going to take forward for the reform of Guernsey’s personal and corporate insolvency laws (the Consultation Response).
Our Restructuring and Insolvency team has had further significant success, recently securing the discharge of an administration order over a Guernsey Protected Cell Company to facilitate its voluntary winding up. The team, led by Guernsey based counsel David Jones and including associate Luke Sayer, acted for local insolvency practitioners Tim Le Cornu and Andrea Harris of KRyS Global.
To our knowledge this is the first time that the Royal Court of Guernsey has ordered that an administration order in Guernsey be discharged so as to facilitate a voluntary winding up.
Carey Olsen's Dispute Resolution Group has successfully secured orders on two separate applications under Guernsey's Protection of Investors and Company Law legislation to place two regulated entities into administration and one company into compulsory liquidation.
The Managing Partner of the firm’s Guernsey office, Advocate John Greenfield, and Senior Associate, Tim Bamford, acted for the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (the "Commission") on both applications.
Introduction
On 24 October 2014, the Commerce & Employment department published its consultation paper on various options for reforming Guernsey's insolvency regime, both for personal and corporate insolvency. Responses to the consultation are due by 31 December 2014. The consultation paper proposes some fairly wide-ranging reforms and seeks responses from industry to a number of questions which, by and large, seek to augment, develop and regularise the insolvency regime in the Island.
Introduction
Under the Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008 (the “Companies Law”) there are two procedures available for the voluntary dissolution of a Guernsey company. A Guernsey company may be dissolved either by way of a “voluntary striking off” or a “voluntary winding up”. We set out below the details of each procedure.
This article focuses on the judgments delivered in June and October 2014 by the Guernsey Court of Appeal in the long-running Tchenguiz litigation [Investec Trust (Guernsey) Limited and Another v Glenalla Properties Limited and Others]. The litigation concerned the liabilities of a trustee to creditors in circumstances where the creditor claims far outweighed the value of the trust fund.
Introduction