A recent BVI Court decision has reaffirmed the power of liquidators to authorise transfers of paid-up shares but stopped short of extending this right to unidentified future share transfers.

In In the Matter of FuturesOne Innovative Fund, Justice Jack held that the Court had the power to authorise the liquidator to transfer paid-up shares in a company in liquidation and to extend that authorisation to identified future share transfers. However, the Court adjourned for further consideration the application by the liquidator for a general dispensation from the need to obtain the Court’s authorisation for unidentified future share transfers.

The Court readily granted the specific authorisation pursuant to section 175 of the Insolvency Act but refrained from extending this more generally pursuant to the Court’s wider power to make directions under section 186 of the Act (as propounded by counsel for the liquidator). Justice Jack held that it was not clear whether the Court had jurisdiction to make the general order requested under section 186 but that “there seems no good reason not to leave the transfer of paid-up shares to the good sense of the liquidator”. The door was left open for counsel for the liquidator to research this point and make updated submissions.