On 5 October 2022 the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) handed down its “momentous” decision in BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA and others1. The case addresses issues of ‘‘considerable practical importance to the management of companies’’, in particular directors’ duties during insolvency or the onset of insolvency.
On 4 and 5 May 2021, the Supreme Court heard an appeal in BTI 2104 LLC v Sequana SA and others [2022] UKSC 25 and this week it gave its judgment. The length of the time taken to issue the judgment reflects both the complexity of the issues involved and the importance of the questions raised for company law in the UK.
BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA and Others [2022] UKSC 25
In a judgment handed down yesterday the Supreme Court has affirmed that a so called “creditor duty” exists for directors such that in some circumstances company directors are required to act in accordance with, or to consider the interests of creditors. Those circumstances potentially arise hen a company is insolvent or where there is a “probability” of an insolvency. We explore below the “trigger” for such a test to apply and its implications.
In this Article, José-Antonio Maurellet SC (a member of DVC and an Associate Member of 3 Verulam Buildings) and Michael Lok discuss the landmark decision just handed down by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA and others
The Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited judgment in BTI 2014 LLC v. Sequana S.A. [2022] UKSC 25 (Supreme Court - BTI v Sequana) concerning the fiduciary duty of directors to act in good faith in the interests of the company.
On 5 October 2022 a judgment was handed down by the Supreme Court in the case of BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA (Sequana) and others.This judgment relates to an insolvency dispute between BTI, the assignee of AWA’s claims, and Sequana. Principally, it concerns which entity should make the payment for an outstanding liability incurred by AWA, arising out of the National Cash Register Company’s (NCR) pollution of the Fox River in Wisconsin. Through a series of restructurings, AWA became liable to indemnify British American Tobacco (BAT) for these costs.
Background
On 5 October 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited judgment in BTI 2014 LLC v. Sequana S.A. [2022] UKSC 25 concerning the trigger point at which directors must have regard to the interests of creditors pursuant to s.172(3) of the Companies Act 2006 (the "creditors' interests duty").
Introduction
Today, the UK Supreme Court considered for the first time the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of a company’s directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.
The Supreme Court's judgment in BTI v Sequana is long-awaited, and welcome. The court has confirmed that directors do have a common law creditors' duty, and that it works on a sliding scale basis.
The long, long awaited Supreme Court Judgment in the Sequana case is finally here. Firstly, for those who may have forgotten what the Supreme Court was grappling with, the issue was 'whether the trigger for the directors’ duty to consider creditors is merely a real risk of, as opposed to a probability of or close proximity to, insolvency'.