Introduction

Throughout the year, we have been keeping you up to date on noteworthy developments across the region with our Regional Round-up Publications. As we enter 2024, we are pleased to share with you our 2023 year-in-review of the Regional Round-up for our Regional Offices in the Rajah & Tann Asia network.

Here’s a due process question that’s percolating before the U.S. Supreme Court and a related mediation issue:

There were 64 filings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) in 2023, which is an approximately 64% year-over-year increase. While this surge is interesting in and of itself, we believe that the volume of 2023 CCAA filings is also notable for the rich data it makes available to insolvency professionals. We used this opportunity to better understand how the CCAA was being employed by reviewing each filling.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has come out with certain measures pertaining to the professional services rendered and availed byinsolvency professionals (IPs), and the framework for insolvency professional entities (IPEs).[1]

Solicitors’ Assumption of Responsibility: Miller v Irwin Mitchell LLP [2023] EWCA Civ 53

There was good news for travel solicitors this week, with the Court of Appeal giving judgment for the solicitors in Miller v Irwin Mitchell.

In the recent case of Just Trays Ltd v Emu Products Ltd [2024] EWHC 29 (Ch) (12th January 2024) the High Court was required to consider this type of application. David Garner reports on the case below.

When a company owes a party money, one option open to it might be to issue a winding up petition against the debtor company.

Bankruptcy law has always been an interesting area to practice and study in China. Having nominally a “socialist market economy” as per its Constitution, China allows its private sector to operate relatively freely within regularly re-defined boundaries but has a strong state-owned sector that comprises about half of the entire economy. Adding constant concerns about social stability in the country of 1.4 billion people, the rules for companies going into insolvency must be a careful balance between capitalist “freedom to fail” principles and governmental control over the economy.

Over the past week, reports have emerged about filings that have been made at Companies House marking a charge as satisfied, without the company's or relevant lender's knowledge.

There were rumours last week, which were simply that, because Companies House had not publicly announced any issue, but, as we have seen over the weekend and is now widely reported in the news, it appears that there have been at least 800 erroneous filings.

Jeremy Charles Frost & Anor v The Good Box Co Labs Ltd & Ors [2024] EWHC 422 (Ch) is a rare case about office-holders’ remuneration that raises some interesting points, although one at least is specific to the nature of the application before the court.

Like many other strategically important sectors, there has long been a bespoke insolvency regime for the water sector. New legislation has been brought into effect in early 2024 as a first step to bringing the special administration regime for water (the SAR) up to date with the general UK insolvency regime.