The recent Australian Federal Court case of Neeat Holdings (in liq) [2013] FCA 61 considered the issue of whether the liquidator of a trustee company should be permitted to sell trust assets notwithstanding the appointment of a new trustee in substitution for the insolvent trustee company.

The Federal Court found that where a trust deed provides for the cessation of a corporate trustee upon the appointment of an administrator or upon a resolution for its liquidation (and there is no replacement trustee appointed), the corporate trustee retains its right of indemnity and continues as bare trustee but does not have the power to sell the trust assets.  However, the Court was persuaded to grant relief to the liquidators of the trustee (who had sold trust assets) on the basis they had not been advised by their solicitors of the disqualification clause and they com

Summary

Pension scheme trustees will generally be concerned to try to ensure that the “safety net” provided by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) remains potentially available for their scheme.

Introduction

The European Commission has approved the plan by the Italian authorities to sell the assets of the airline Alitalia, which had entered into financial difficulties, under a special insolvency procedure. The Commission concluded that the sale of the assets would not constitute a subsidy prohibited under EU State aid rules provided the assets are sold at market value and other conditions have been satisfied. An independent trustee has been appointed to oversee the sale by the administrator assigned under the special insolvency procedure.

On November 1 2007 the State Commission for Insolvency presented the Preliminary Bill for an Insolvency Act to the minister of justice. The bill contains rules for the recognition of insolvency proceedings in non-EU countries and the law applicable to foreign proceedings. This update examines those rules and their relationship to the EU Insolvency Regulation and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency.

Case Law

A recent decision of the Slovak Courts suggest that if main proceedings have been opened in one member state and the debtor has assets in Slovakia, the insolvency practitioner in the main proceedings must act quickly and sell those assets before secondary proceedings are opened in Slovakia, otherwise he runs the risk of losing the assets to the secondary estate. Legal title to the assets must have passed to the buyer before the secondary proceedings are opened; it is not enough just for contracts to have been exchanged.

The Ministry of Economic Development has released a discussion document (together with a Q & A) which considers a range of potential changes to the fees and levies that fund the institutions that regulate New Zealand's corporate environment and financial markets.

ACC had contracted OPC to provide services. OPC's directors later established the OPC Trust, with OPC as the trustee, and 3 residuary trusts as beneficiaries.

The past May 24th, the National Assembly of Nicaragua, unanimously approved the Law No. 741 "Law of reforms to the Law on Trust Agreement", which was published this Tuesday 6th of June, 2017 in the Official Gazette No. 105. The law on Trust Agreement regulates the use of the trust as a security, which established that in case of breach of the secured obligation by the debtor, the trustee had to pay the debt, and afterwards recover the amount paid with the result of the auction of the trusted assets, in accordance with the terms and conditions agreed by the parties in the trust agreement.