The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on May 29, 2012, that secured lenders have the right to credit bid their debt instead of having to pay cash in an auction of their collateral as part of a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization.
A year after the uncertainty created in the Canadian corporate debt financing world by the Ontario Court of Appeal's pensions-friendly decision in the Indalex CCAA restructuring matter2, the Quebec Superior Court, in April 2012, determined in a lengthy and well-reasoned decision that the key restructuring and pensions law principles underpinning Indalex do not apply in Quebec when considering the treatment of defined benefit amortization payment and deficit claims in a restructuring.
The Supreme Court of Canada has recently granted leave to appeal from the judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Edward Sumio Nishi v. Rascal Trucking Ltd. This appeal focuses on the test for a resulting trust in the commercial context.
The common law has long recognized a secured creditor’s duty to provide reasonable notice to borrowers before enforcing its security and appointing a receiver. The practical importance of this has become less significant since the codification of the principle of reasonable notice in section 244 of theBankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”). However, in the recent case of Bank of Montreal v.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) has confirmed that historical environmental remediation obligations will not automatically take priority over the claims of other creditors in an insolvency, even where those obligations are framed in the form of regulatory orders.
Whether a lease is a “true” or “finance” lease has been debated in Canadian courts for decades in many different contexts. The consequences of the categorization of a lease can have a material impact on the recovery that a lessor may have in an insolvency of its lessee. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench recently released its decision in the matter of Royal Bank of Canada v. Cow Harbour Ltd. and 1134252 Alberta Ltd. (“Cow Harbour”) on January 23, 2012.
In a recent edition of Fully Secured (September 29, 2011 – Volume 2, No. 3), the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Re Indalex Limited was discussed, in which the Ontario Court of Appeal held that a statutory deemed trust claim arising out of a pension plan wind-up deficiency ranked in priority to debtor in possession (“DIP”) financing.
There have been several recent developments with respect to this decision since the date of that publication.
Lenders should be cognizant that the granting of security by a debtor may be subject to challenge as a fraudulent preference in the event the debtor subsequently files for liquidation or proposal proceedings under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada) (the “BIA”) or restructuring proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) (the “CCAA”). Such risk arises if the debtor is insolvent the time the security was granted.
On February 2 and 9, 2012, the Ontario Superior Court released two decisions in the ongoing proceedings of Timminco Limited and Bécancour Silicon Inc. (together, the Timminco Entities) under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) that further develop the law regarding pension claim priorities in insolvency proceedings.
In the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Toronto-Dominion Bank and Her Majesty the Queen (2012 SCC 1), the Supreme Court succinctly agreed with the reasons of Justice Noël of the Federal Court of Appeal.