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Impartial and independent, ThoughtLeaders4 FIRE Knowledge Hub hosts cutting edge industry content and insight.

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New freestanding moratorium introduced into the Insolvency Act 1986

Date: 20/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency |
Author: David Harby - PCB Litigation

As part of the recent CIGA, the Government has introduced new provisions into the IA which provide for a new free standing moratorium available to companies, independent of any separate insolvency proceedings.

Investigative Receiverships: Bringing a Canadian Concept to Offshore Enforcement

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | International | Enforcement |
Author: Mark A. Russell – KSG Attorneys at Law (Cayman Islands)

Judgment creditors are often cursed by asymmetrical information. When it comes time to enforce, a debtor will already know what assets it owns and where those assets are located. Unscrupulous debtors will try to hide or transform their assets through layers of transactions designed to frustrate enforcement. Bridging that informational gap requires the creative deployment of various investigative tools on behalf of the creditor.

Civil remedies for identifying and injuncting hackers in Singapore

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Enforcement |
Author: Danny Quay - Providence Law Asia (Singapore)

On 9 May 2020, Bleepingcomputer.com published an article with an ominous sounding title “Hacker group floods dark web with data stolen from 11 companies”. In the article, it was revealed that a hacking group known as Shiny Hunters had hacked into the databases of companies such as Tokopedia (Indonesia’s largest online store) and Unacademy (one of India’s largest online learning platforms), and had begun selling the user databases over the Dark Web for between $500 to $5,000 each.

Third Party Financing and the Ability to Recover Fees from an Opposing Party

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency | Civil Fraud | Enforcement | Author: Ken Epstein and Nilufar Hossain – Omni Bridgeway

Litigation can be expensive. Very expensive. And the only thing litigants dislike more than paying their own attorneys’ fees is also having to pay the legal fees of their adversaries when they lose a case. Unsurprisingly, losing parties assert creative arguments to avoid this outcome. One recent example arose in FastShip, LLC v. United States, a case involving a third-party litigation funder.1 The losing defendant argued that, since the funder, not the plaintiff, paid the legal costs, the plaintiff lacked standing and its statutory right to recover attorneys’ fees was destroyed.

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Insolvent trusts and trustee duties

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud | International | Private Client | Trusts |
Author: Emma McCall – Stewarts

Economic uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic will undoubtedly have a profound effect on the value of trust assets. Industry experts predict steep rises in insolvencies, affecting key industries. Many businesses may become cash-flow/balance sheet insolvent (if they are not already).

Don’t forget those checks and balances!

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud | International |
Author: Phil Crooks – BRG

The severe economic and social impact of COVID-19 has increased the likelihood of fraud, not just in relation to the government assistance schemes where false claims could be made, but also the risks faced by companies and other organisations who may be subject to fraud as a result of the new working environment.

Switzerland: easy steps to kick off an asset search

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud | Enforcement |
Author: Yannick Poivey – Swiss Forensic & Compliance Sàrl (Switzerland)

Switzerland’s recurrent presence in multi-jurisdictional asset tracing exercises is certainly not proportionate to the small size of its territory. For creditors however, the Swiss jurisdiction poses a number of challenges in terms of information retrieval. From the lack of centralized data to the use of three different main languages in business life, conducting research in Switzerland is often perceived as complex and costly.

Panama Resurrects Equitable Relief

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | International |
Author: David M. Mizrachi, B.A., J.D – MDU Legal (Panama)

Panama, which infamous “Panama Papers” have put the country in the limelight for the past four years, is not a traditional offshore jurisdiction. It is more of a traditional Civil Law jurisdiction with a (formerly) notable offshore sector. In the strict Civil Law tradition, Panamanian substantive and procedural laws tend to stress legal remedies over equitable remedies.  Thus, its judiciary is not prone to issue equitable relief to the same extent it is issued by its Common Law counterparts in England, the British Commonwealth and the United States of America.

Asset Tracing & Recovery in Singapore

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency | Civil Fraud | International | Enforcement |
Author: Abraham Vergis, Danny Quah, Kenny Lau – Providence Law Asia (Singapore)

Singapore is one of Asia’s leading centres for conventional banking and financial services, and is fast becoming a hub for digital payments and cryptocurrency platforms. As such, there is an ever-present risk of fraud. This article provides a snapshot of the mechanisms through which victims of fraud may seek to recover assets via civil proceedings in Singapore.

COVID-19 Challenges to Cross-Border Insolvency

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency |
Author: Ays Lidzhanova - Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners (Russia)

COVID-19 has had an overwhelming impact on the global economy. Future economic effects of the pandemic will largely depend on the efficiency of government actions. At present, record number of personal, corporate, local, and cross-border bankruptcy filings is being anticipated due to the virus.1 A vast majority of airlines is likely to collapse without extensive financial support paving the way to a litany of multinational failures

Using Creditor Administration Applications as a Tool for Asset Recovery in respect of Corporate Targets

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency | Civil Fraud |
Author: Luke Harrison - Keidan Harrison

The insolvency process often features as a weapon in the asset recovery arsenal so far as corporate targets are concerned. It’s utility not only as a mechanism to recover assets but also as a tool with which to recovery information is well known. The appointment of administrators by creditors with a qualified floating charge is quick and effective and so it is not surprising why it is favoured by secured creditors. It’s use by unsecured creditors is, however, much less frequent principally because of the lack of information about the company’s business and affairs.

Passing the buck: who is responsible for a fraudulently-diverted payment?

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud | International |
Author: Matthew McGhee - Twenty Essex

A form of fraud which FIRE practitioners are often asked to advise on starts with a contract, where one party is required to pay the other. For example, the paying party might be a buyer under a sale contract. The dispute arises where a fraudster has induced the buyer to pay the fraudster instead of the seller

Investigate and Preserve

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency | Civil Fraud | International | Enforcement | Offshore |
Author: Shaun Reardon-John - Martin Kenney & Co (BVI)

Shaun Reardon-John outlines why pre-action asset investigation and preservation is going to be crucial during the Coronavirus crisis.

Covid-19: A Perfect Storm over the Courts System

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | International | Enforcement |
Author: Hector Sbert - Lawants (Spain)

The COVID-19 crisis has caused a perfect storm in which the increase in commercial disputes, fraud-related behaviours and insolvencies has come hand-in-hand with the impossibility of the judicial system to deal with them, as the crisis has also prevented the courts from operating normally.

English Courts: At the Forefront of Fighting Fraud

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud |
Author: Jon Felce, Natalie Todd & Anastasia Tropsha - PCB Litigation

As fraud continues to be rife, it is important to develop new tools and strengthen existing mechanisms to enable claimants to pursue, locate and enforce against fraudsters and their ill-gotten assets.  Over the past few years, the English Courts have continued to develop the law in this area. We set out below a non-exhaustive snapshot of some of these developments in three areas. These highlight the progress continuing to be made in the fight against fraud, and bodes extremely well for the future.

Covid-19 Induced Insolvencies - Things to Watch Out for

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Insolvency | Civil Fraud | International |
Author: Rick Brown & David Chalcraft - HFW

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the far reaching and drastic measures implemented in numerous countries around the world, we are receiving an increasing number of insolvency and restructuring enquiries from our clients.

Civil Fraud Quarterly Round-Up: Q2 2020

Date: 15/07/2020 Type: Articles Topic: FIRE | Civil Fraud |
Author: Mary Young - Kingsley Napley

This quarterly civil fraud update provides a summary of reported decisions handed down in the courts of England and Wales in the period April - June 2020.

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