In the case of Southbury Insurance Ltd v Black, Messrs Downey and Black, the receivers of South Canterbury Finance (SCF) successfully sought permission from the Court to be appointed liquidators of Southbury Insurance Limited (Southbury) despite being disqualified under section 280(1) of the Companies Act 1993 (the Act).

The Isle of Man case Simpson v Light House Living Ltd concerned an appeal on a successful set-off claim brought by Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson.  When the bank Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Limited entered liquidation, Macpherson had £2,541,680.09 deposited in the bank in her personal capacity and potentially owed the bank over £7,801,727 pounds by way of the company Light House Living Limited.

Fortress Credit Corporation (Australia) II Pty Ltd v Fletcher [2011] FACFC 89 concerned the powers of liquidators in Australia.  In 2009, joint liquidators were appointed to Octaviar Limited (Octaviar) and Octaviar Administration (Funder).  Fortress claimed to be a secured creditor of Octaviar under a charge, and was owed approximately $71 million.  The liquidators arranged for Octaviar and the Funder to enter into funding agreements that provided for the Funder to fund an investigation into the actions of Fortress and to commence litigation against Fortress.

In our December 2010 insolvency update, we reported on the UK High Court's decision in BNY Corporate Trustee Services Limited v Eurosail.

The mere existence of a secured remedy against another party is not a substantial ground for refusing to allow a creditor to pursue a remedy against a guarantor.

This update deals with the significant appeal judgment released yesterday by the Court of Appeal in the proceedings brought by the liquidators of Mainzeal Property and Construction Ltd (in Liq) (Mainzeal) against its directors. Our previous legal updates on the High Court decisions can be found here and here.

The English Court of Appeal in Re Debenhams Retail Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 600 recently considered the inter-relationship between the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the ‘adoption’ of employment contacts by administrators under the Insolvency Act 1986.  The issue was whether by paying only the amounts which may be claimed under the Scheme to furloughed employees, the administrators have adopted the contracts.  Adoption means that the wages and other entitlements are payable as expenses of the administration ahead of other expenses.  

The High Court in DHC Assets Ltd v Arnerich [2019] NZHC 1695 recently considered an application under s 301 of the Companies Act (the Act) seeking to recover $1,088,156 against the former director of a liquidated company (Vaco). The plaintiff had a construction contract with Vaco and said it had not been paid for all the work it performed under that contract.

The English High Court in Bank and Clients Plc v King and Brown considered guarantor liability in circumstances where the guarantors, Messrs King and Brown, alleged representations had been made by the Bank that would relieve them of their liability.

The English Court of Appeal has recently decided that a corporation that held shares in a company remained a shareholder notwithstanding the shareholding company's dissolution.

BWE Estates Limited had two shareholders: an individual named David who held 75% of its shares and a company, Belvedere Limited, which held the remaining 25%. Although Belvedere was dissolved in 1996, it remained listed as a shareholder in BWE's share register.