Facts
In 2006, a subsidiary of a Brazilian company issued US$100 million in principal amount of notes, guaranteed by its parent and constituted by a trust deed.
As noted in our July 2010 newsletter, lawyers are not immune from the recession.
A facilitation payment to encourage creditors to vote through the restructuring proposals of creditors’ debts has been held by the High Court not to be an illegal bribe. The court had regard to the fact that the offer of payment was made openly to all relevant creditors, none of whom were prevented from voting on the proposal. As such, where a creditor consented and received the facilitation payment, this was not contrary to the pari passu principle.
The facts
The Sinclair v Versailles1 decision has extinguished any prospect that a victim of a fraud has a proprietary claim to a fraudster’s secret profits. It also offers significant comfort to banks, insolvency practitioners and other potential recipients of trust funds by setting a high bar for whether a recipient person is “on notice” of a proprietary claim to those funds.
In relation to insolvent liquidations under U.K. law, one of the primary objectives will be the implementation of an efficient process to preserve and recover assets for the benefit of the creditors. This is particularly so where there is a need to instigate costly litigation or cross-border recognition proceedings and where the liquidator will want increased assurances as to the likelihood that those steps will generate positive returns.
On 21 May 2010, Justice Floyd handed down his judgment in Bloomsbury International Ltd (in administration) v Mark Alan Holyoake.1 The case sheds light on the circumstances in which it is appropriate for a cross-undertaking provided by administrators on behalf of an insolvent company to be fortifi ed by a bank guarantee.
Facts
The SFO has announced that managing director and shareholder of Alta Gas Plc, Peter Brian Bradley, has been ordered to pay £1 million compensation to victims following confiscation proceedings on 26 January 2010. In 2001, Alta Gas Plc went into administrative receivership which resulted in the receivers of the company discovering a sophisticated system of false accounts that enhanced the profitability of the company.
An agreement signed by a director on behalf of his company containing a promise by the company to pay for goods to be ordered in the future, rendered the director personally liable where he knew at the time of signing that the company was insolvent and had no prospects of becoming solvent.
On September 25, the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced that two UK-based firms have been placed into liquidation by the UK High Court following the FSA’s intervention. The FSA believes that these scams may have fraudulently persuaded up to 800 people into buying worthless shares. Investors are believed to have lost up to £3.5 million ($7.5 million).
Chesteroak Limited and Bingen Investments Limited were shut down following allegations that they were dealing in or arranging deals in shares without proper authorization.
In proceedings commenced by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the UK High Court ruled in December 2004 that Adrian Sam & Co (ASC) and John Martin, one of ASC’s two partners, were knowingly involved in the UK activities of an illegal overseas investment firm (a boiler room) and they were ordered to pay £360,000 (approximately $700,000) to 63 investors involved in the boiler room scam. A bankruptcy order was granted against John Martin in August 2006.