Avoiding and Managing Insolvency Issues
Whether cash flow insolvent, balance sheet insolvent or near insolvent, our extensive experience, commerciality and business acumen positions us to advise and guide our clients, both individuals and companies, through vexing and complex insolvency issues and procedures.
Should our clients find themselves the subject of some form of insolvency procedure, we are able to provide reassurance, inform them of their options (often when the client considers that none exist) and carefully guide them through the technical steps necessary to achieve their goals.
We have experience and knowledge of all of the current insolvency procedures including applications for ‘en désastre’ (a petition for bankruptcy), dégrèvement (a creditor’s application to disencumber real estate), realisation (a creditor’s application to possess and sell moveable goods), remise de biens (a debtor’s application for a moratorium on insolvency procedures to allow for the organisation of their financial affairs) and the winding up of companies.
Our strengths in this area of practice position us equally well to assert, advance, protect and preserve the interests of debtors (whether secured or unsecured) who wish to claim against their potentially or actually insolvent creditors. These strengths also enable us to advise directors of insolvent companies, liquidators and the personal representatives of insolvent estates in relation to the proper discharge of their duties and exercise of their powers.
Outside of our standard commercial and civil insolvency practice, we also have a familiarity with Pauline actions and associated extraterritorial enforcement issues. A Pauline action is a claim by a creditor to set aside transactions his debtor entered into with the intention of prejudicing the creditor. We have successfully concluded Pauline actions against non-resident individuals and resident corporate trustees. We have similar experience in advising on the potential liability of directors for wrongful and/or fraudulent trading and attacking preferential and/or undervalue transactions.
