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.

Payments made by a debtor which disadvantage its creditors may be void and if so must be returned. This applies where the debtor and the recipient of the payment knew that the debtor was unable to pay its debts.

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

TM rights in ‘Shakti Bhog’ controversy amid insolvency proceedings Amid the ongoing criminal proceedings alleging fraud and money laundering against officers of the Shakti Bhog companies and of creditor bank employees, insolvency proceedings are underway and have been for some time. A dispute concerning ownership of intellectual property rights in a valuable trade mark is part of the insolvency process.

Background

The Insolvency Practice Schedule (Corporations) (“IPS”) was inserted into the Corporations Act 2001 (“Act”) by the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 (Cth). Under section 70-45 of the IPS, a creditor can request an external administrator of a company to give company information to the creditor. The impetus behind introducing this section was trying to achieve greater transparency for creditors who, through their inspection of the administrator’s files, can monitor the external administrator’s conduct.

Under the Law on Bankruptcy 2014, creditors (chủ nợ) of a bankrupt enterprise include unsecured creditors, partially secured creditors (chủ nợ có bảo đảm một phần) and secured creditors (chủ nợcó bảo đảm). While it is not entirely clear, it appears that partially secured creditors are considered as a separate class of creditors and have their own rights during a bankruptcy proceeding.

Under the Law on Bankruptcy 2014,

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.

Our analysis of a recent court judgment in the ongoing liquidation of the high profile crypto-asset hedge fund Three Arrows Capital is by Nicholas Brookes and Romauld Johnson, part of Ogier's BVI team representing the joint liquidators.

Read our update on crypto insolvency issues from Three Arrows, which illustrates implications of the judgment including