The exercise of the court’s discretionary jurisdiction to wind up an unregistered overseas company has again come under judicial spotlight in the recent case of Re China Medical Technologies Inc. (HCCW 435/2012).

The Court of First Instance in Hong Kong recently provided a timely reminder that the jurisdiction to wind up a foreign company is an exorbitant one and therefore winding up petitions and applications for leave to serve them out of the Hong Kong jurisdiction must be properly thought through and drafted before the Court will consider giving leave to serve out, and they may be liable to be struck out entirely if not.

The Court of Appeal has unanimously upheld an order refusing to strike out a claim by a “one-man” company in liquidation, which had been the vehicle for a VAT fraud, against its former directors and overseas suppliers alleged to have been involved in the fraud.

The Supreme Court has today ruled on the ranking of certain pension liabilities when issued to companies in administration or liquidation.

Background

Pars Ram Brother (Singapore Company) obtained trade financing facilities from various banks, and pledged the goods financed by each bank under a pledge arrangement as security.

The Singapore Company entered into voluntary liquidation. The liquidator discovered that the Singapore Company had mixed the goods making it impossible to identify which goods were financed by which bank.

Issue

Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon, owners of the New York Mets baseball team, invested in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Irving Picard, the trustee appointed under the Securities Investor Protection Act to liquidate the business of Madoff and Madoff Securities, sought to recover over $1 billion from Katz and Wilpon on the grounds that they had made money from Madoff through fraud, constructive fraud and preferential transfers in violation of federal bankruptcy law and New York debtor-creditor law.

On April 7, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its judgment in theRe Indalex Limited case (Indalex).1 The decision addresses the interplay between the deemed trust provision in the Ontario Pension and Benefits Act (PBA)2 and the federal Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA),3 as well as the fiduciary duties of pension plan administrators in CCAA proceedings. Indalex is important for pension plan sponsors and administrators for a number of reasons:

On April 7, 2011, in the context of a liquidating CCAA that achieved a going concern sale of the debtor’s business, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that:

On December 16, 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ( SCC) released its decision in Re Ted Leroy Trucking Ltd. In its decision, the SCC affirmed the importance of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) as a flexible restructuring tool, and clarified the source and limits of the Court’s authority during CCAA proceedings. Furthermore, the Court overruled the judgment of the B.C.

We know this publication is about dispute resolution, but what we really want to talk about in this article is avoiding insolvency and bankruptcy disputes.

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