The Supreme Court has recently released a decision on directors' duties, which should serve as a timely reminder to all directors of their duties under the Companies Act in circumstances of insolvency. Continuing to trade while insolvent will be a breach of your duties, even if you believe that overall creditors may be better off or the extent of losses will be reduced. It is however welcome confirmation for liquidators that the Courts will enforce the provisions of the Companies Act based on the clear wording of these sections.
How does the objective of achieving payment for creditors in insolvency interact with the objectives of pension legislation, which seeks to ensure that individuals are adequately provided for in retirement? The courts in New Zealand and in the UK have each recently grappled with this issue. In both of the recent cases considered in this article the pensions objectives won out and the specific pension funds in question were not made available for the bankrupt individual's creditors.
The New Zealand economy has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic better than many commentators predicted in April last year, in part due to the significant economic stimulus from the government, coupled with record high house prices and rock bottom interest rates. This is reflected in RITANZ's latest formal insolvency statistics, which show record low liquidation application numbers for September 2021 compared to the three previous years.
Five years after it refused to pay rent and took the landlord to the High Court, and two years after it was placed into liquidation on account of unpaid rent, the final branch of litigation brought by the directors of Oceanic Palms Limited (in liq) has been cut down by the Supreme Court.
The Insolvency and Company Court of England and Wales recently held in Sell Your Car With Us Ltd v Anil Sareen [2019] EWHC 2332 (Ch) that, when a debtor fails to comply with a statutory demand and has no arguable case to dispute a debt, a winding-up petition (initiation of liquidation proceedings) is appropriate, despite judges previously expressing distaste towards the use of a petition as a method of debt collection.
In Lafferty v Official Assignee Gordon J considered Mr Lafferty's appeal of two decisions of the Official Assignee to refuse Mr Lafferty's applications under section 62(1)(a) of the Insolvency Act 1967 to enter or carry on business while bankrupt.
Gordon J dismissed the appeal on the basis that Mr Lafferty could not show that the Official Assignee had made an error of law, failed to take into account relevant considerations or was manifestly wrong in exercising its discretion under regulation 34 of the Insolvency Regulations 1970.
The Supreme Court has recently confirmed that the courts will adopt "a practical business approach (as against one which is unduly technical)" to the determination of due debts when considering a company's ability to pay its due debts.
This question arose in Queensland recently in Linc Energy Ltd (in liq): Longley & Ors v Chief Executive Dept of Environment & Heritage Protection. The Supreme Court of Queensland found that the liquidators of Linc Energy were not justified in causing the company not to comply with an environmental protection order that required the company to maintain equipment that the liquidators had disclaimed.
In Intext Coatings Ltd (In Liquidation) v Deo, the High Court was again asked to consider the limits of the equitable remedy of tracing (previously considered here). In particular, the Court was asked to consider the circumstances in which 'backward tracing' (the tracing of trust funds used to repay a debt into the asset over which that debt arose) is available.
Bankruptcy represents a significant interference with the bankrupt's property and business activities. Those consequences form the judicial policy at work in Re Bartercard Exchange Ltd [2016] NZHC 703, in which the Court refused to cure deficiencies in Bartercard's bankruptcy notice, and dismissed its application to adjudicate Mr de Vires bankrupt.