Offshore Litigation Blog

The English Court of Appeal’s decision in Servis-Terminal LLC v Drelle concerns the issue of whether unregistered or non-domesticated foreign judgments or arbitration awards can be used as a basis for insolvency proceedings. The English Court of Appeal ruled that such judgments cannot serve as a basis for bankruptcy petitions in England.

In the recent Cayman decision of L.R. Capital China Growth II Company Limited (LR Capital) v International Corporation Services Ltd (ICS) , Justice Asif refused preservation orders and sealing and gagging orders sought by the Plaintiffs in support of an intended Norwich Pharmacal application.

In the recent unreported decision of Clico International Life Insurance Ltd & Anor v Eastern Caribbean Baptist Mission & Ors, the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal (COA) provided useful guidance on when it is appropriate to “lift the veil”, as an exception to the well-established legal principle that companies have separate legal personality.

The Cayman Islands Grand Court recently considered the circumstances necessitating a second adjournment of a trial where a principal witness was unable to travel outside of the PRC to attend trial for cross-examination. In In The Matter of Shiliu Investment Group Limited, the Court re-examined the principles of fairness in a somewhat novel situation where the only two witnesses at trial were unable to travel to the Cayman Islands to give evidence.

The recent English High Court decision in Kireeva v Clement Glory Limited considered conflicts of law principles for the purposes of determining the location of shares in a BVI company and whether the English Court had jurisdiction to hear a trust claim regarding the beneficial ownership of BVI shares.

The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands follows the Privy Council decision in Sian v Halimeda and confirms that an applicant for an injunction restraining the presentation of a winding up petition must show that the debt is disputed on genuine and substantial grounds, even where there is an arbitration agreement.

In the recent decision involving Trillion Glory Limited and R&F Properties (HK) Company Limited, Madam Justice Linda Chan of the High Court of Hong Kong dismissed winding-up petitions filed by a secured creditor, on the basis that the secured creditor lacked a real interest in the proposed liquidations and there was no benefit in issuing a winding-up order due to the absence of assets for unsecured creditors.

In the Abraaj General Partner VIII Ltd v Abraaj ABOF IV SPV Ltd, the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal (CICA) has clarified the scope of a limited partner’s statutory right to receive “true and full information” under section 22 of the Exempted Limited Partnership Act (2024 Revision) (ELPA) – and where the line should be drawn.

The anonymity which digital currencies and online trading more generally permit is one of the factors which makes the digital space so attractive to those seeking to perpetrate fraud. The claims that have come before the courts of England and Wales involving digital assets have almost exclusively been fraud cases. In these cases, the courts have generally taken a pragmatic approach, permitting such actions to be begun against the unidentified fraudsters as “persons unknown” and granting freezing and disclosure orders to assist in securing and recovering (so far as possible) the proceeds of the fraud.

A significant recent Privy Council decision, Stevanovich v Richardson, clarifies the limits of s273 of the BVI Insolvency Act, Revised Edition 2020 (IA). In particular, the decision confirms that only limited categories of persons can challenge a liquidator’s decision, despite the apparently broad language of s273.

Perhaps inevitably given the exponential growth in the value of the crypto market in recent years, courts all over the world are now tasked with resolving an increasing number of crypto-related disputes. Within the context of crypto recovery claims, this has invariably required the court to grapple with the underlying blockchain technologies.

After a long week’s work, it is always a pleasure to grab a pint of beer with your colleagues. It is no different at Harneys’ Hong Kong office, and in fact we go way beyond that to enjoy beers. We frequent popular craft beer joints around the city, have had beer tasting sessions with our business partners as networking events and internally as team events to strengthen the bonding among team members. Why? It is because our Counsel Sui Hung Yeung is a beer enthusiast, to the extent that he has been regularly acting as a beer judge and brewing his own beers at home. As you can tell, the team has been benefitting a lot from his passion for beer.