Domestic Procedures
Banned! Fraudsters!– Terms used by the Insolvency Service for directors who abused the government backed loan scheme which was put in place to help businesses struggling during the pandemic.
In highly-anticipated twin rulings, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal has confirmed the approach which should be taken when a debtor opposes insolvency proceedings on the basis of a defence or claim which is subject to an arbitration clause (Re Simplicity & Vogue Retailing (HK) Co., Limited [2024] HKCA 299; Re
1. Voluntary Termination and Initiation of Liquidation Procedure
Under Turkish law, the termination of a corporation may be due to various reasons (e.g., merger, division, voluntary termination). In case of voluntary termination, a general assembly resolution for the termination is required. If and when a corporation decides on the termination voluntarily, the liquidation procedure must be initiated and exhausted.
Phoenix Tech Ltd had carried on business to defraud HMRC by participating in a kind of VAT fraud sometimes called “missing trader intra-community” fraud or “carousel” fraud. It had submitted a VAT return claiming the right to deduct VAT and a repayment in respect of various transactions in the sum of £4.5 million. HMRC denied the input tax claim in relation to the transactions and issued a misdeclaration penalty for £607,387. The company appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber).
1. Is a letter of support from your immediate holding company sufficient to satisfy the solvency test?
Domestic Procedures
In Re a Company [2024] EWHC 1070 (Ch) was an application to restrain presentation of a petition on five grounds:
(1) that the judgment debt was time-barred; (2) that it was unclear if there had been an acknowledgment of the debt within the limitation period; (3) that there was a substantial dispute as to whether the judgment debt had been satisfied; (4) that the company was solvent; and (5) whether it was appropriate to grant an injunction.
In a recent decision of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (In the matter of Pacific Plumbing Group Pty Limited (in liquidation) [2024] NSWSC 525), Justice Black determined that a payment made by a third party was not an unfair preference because the payment did not diminish assets available to creditors.
Key Takeaways
On 31 August 2022, the Cayman Islands restructuring officer regime came into force.[1] The regime was introduced to provide increased flexibility to implement a restructuring of Cayman Islands insolvent companies, including by providing the breathing space of an automatic moratorium that operates from the date of presentation of the restructuring petition.