Rubin and another v Eurofinance SA and others

There are two appeals before the court: Rubin v Eurofinance SA (“Rubin”) and New Cap Reinsurance Corpn Ltd v Grant (“New Cap”). These appeals raise an important and novel issue in international insolvency law. The issue is whether, and if so, in what circumstances, an order or judgment of a foreign court (on these appeals the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, and the New South Wales Supreme Court) in proceedings to adjust or set aside prior transactions, eg preferences or transactions at an undervalue (“avoidance proceedings”), will be recognised and enforced in England. The appeals also raise the question whether enforcement may be effected through the international assistance provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law (implemented by the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/1030) (“CBIR”)), which applies generally, or the assistance provisions of section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which applies to a limited number of countries, including Australia.

In Rubin a judgment of the US Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (“the US Bankruptcy Court”) in default of appearance for about US$10m under State and Federal law in respect of fraudulent conveyances and transfers was enforced in England at common law. In New Cap (in which the Court of Appeal was bound by the prior decision in Rubin) a default judgment of the New South Wales Supreme Court, Equity Division, for about US$8m in respect of unfair preferences under Australian law was enforced under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 (“the 1933 Act”), and, alternatively, pursuant to powers under section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986.

In each of the appeals it was accepted or found that the party against whom they were given was neither present (nor, for the purposes of the 1933 Act, resident) in the foreign country nor submitted to its jurisdiction (which are the relevant conditions for enforceability at common law and under the 1933 Act), but that those conditions did not apply to judgments or orders in foreign insolvency proceedings.

In addition to the arguments on these two appeals, the court has had the great benefit of written submissions on behalf of parties to proceedings pending in Gibraltar. Those proceedings are to enforce default judgments entered by the US Bankruptcy Court for some $247m in respect of alleged preferential payments to companies in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands arising out of the notorious Ponzi scheme operated by Mr Bernard Madoff.

It has been necessary to emphasise that the judgments in all three matters were in default of appearance, because if the judgment debtors had appeared and defended the proceedings in the foreign courts, the issues on these appeals would not have arisen. The reason is that the judgments would have been enforceable on the basis of the defendants’ submission to the jurisdiction of the foreign court. Enforcement would have been at common law, or, in the New Cap case either under the common law, or under the 1933 Act which substantially reproduces the common law principles - there is a subsidiary issue on this appeal as to whether the 1933 Act applies to judgments in insolvency proceedings, dealt with in section IX below.

Under the common law a court of a foreign country has jurisdiction to give a judgment in personam where (among other cases) the judgment debtor was present in the foreign country when the proceedings were instituted, or submitted to the jurisdiction of the foreign court by voluntarily appearing in the proceedings. In the case of the 1933 Act the foreign court is deemed to have jurisdiction where the judgment debtor submitted to the jurisdiction by voluntarily appearing in the proceedings otherwise than for the purpose (inter alia) of contesting the jurisdiction; or where the judgment debtor was resident at the time when the proceedings were instituted, or being a body corporate had an office or place of business there: section 4(2)(a)(i),(iv).

The general principle has been referred to on these appeals, by reference to the common law rule set out in Dicey, Morris & Collins, Conflict of Laws (14th edition, 2006), as “Dicey’s Rule 36.” This was only by way of shorthand, because the rules in the 1933 Act are not quite identical, and in any event has been purely for convenience, because the Rule has no standing beyond the case law at common law which it seeks to re-state. What was Rule 36 now appears (incorporating some changes which are not material on this appeal) as Rule 43 in the new 15th edition, and I shall refer to it as “the Dicey Rule.” So far as relevant, Rule 43 (Dicey, Morris and Collins, Conflict of Laws, 15th ed, 2012, para 14R-054) states:

“a court of a foreign country outside the United Kingdom has jurisdiction to give a judgment in personam capable of enforcement or recognition as against the person against whom it was given in the following cases:

First Case―If the person against whom the judgment was given was, at the time the proceedings were instituted, present in the foreign country.

Second Case―If the person against whom the judgment was given was claimant, or counterclaimed, in the proceedings in the foreign court.

Third Case―If the person against whom the judgment was given submitted to the jurisdiction of that court by voluntarily appearing in the proceedings.

Fourth Case―If the person against whom the judgment was given had before the commencement of the proceedings agreed, in respect of the subject matter of the proceedings, to submit to the jurisdiction of that court or of the courts of that country.”

The first edition of Dicey in 1896 stated (Rule 80) that the foreign court would have jurisdiction if “the defendant was resident [or present?]” in the foreign country “so as to have the benefit, and be under the protection, of the laws thereof.” By the 6th edition in 1949 the formula was repeated by Professor Wortley (Rule 68) but without the doubt about presence as a basis of jurisdiction. In the 8th edition in 1958 Dr (later Professor) Clive Parry removed the phrase (then Rule 189) about the benefit and protection of the foreign country’s laws. The Rule, subsequently edited by Dr Morris and then by Professor Kahn-Freund, remained in that form until the decision in Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433 (CA), which established that presence in the foreign jurisdiction, as opposed to residence, was a sufficient basis for the recognition of foreign judgments. Then, edited by myself and later by Professor Briggs, the Rule took substantially its present form in the 12th edition in 1993.

The theoretical basis for the enforcement of foreign judgments at common law is that they are enforced on the basis of a principle that where a court of competent jurisdiction has adjudicated a certain sum to be due from one person to another, a legal obligation arises to pay that sum, on which an action of debt to enforce the judgment may be maintained: Williams v Jones (1845) 13 M & W 628, 633 per Parke B; Godard v Gray (1870) LR 6 QB 139, 147, per Blackburn J; Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433, 513; Owens Bank Ltd v Bracco [1992] 2 AC 443, 484, per Lord Bridge of Harwich. As Blackburn J said in Godard v Gray, this was based on the mode of pleading an action on a foreign judgment in debt, and not merely as evidence of the obligation to pay the underlying liability: LR 6 QB 139, 150. But this is a purely theoretical and historical basis for the enforcement of foreign judgments at common law. It does not apply to enforcement under statute, and makes no practical difference to the analysis, nor, in my judgment, to the issues on these appeals.

Consequently, if the judgments in issue on the appeals are regarded as judgments in personam within the Dicey Rule, then they will only be enforced in England at common law if the judgment debtors were present (or, if the 1933 Act applies, resident) in the foreign country when the proceedings were commenced, or if they submitted to its jurisdiction. It is common ground that the judgment debtors were not present or resident, respectively, in the United States or in Australia, although there is an issue as to whether the New Cap defendants submitted to the jurisdiction of the Australian court, which is dealt with in section VIII below.

There are some general remarks to be made. First, from as early as the mid-18th century the English courts have recognised the effect of foreign personal bankruptcies declared under the law of the domicile: Solomons v Ross (1764) 1 H Bl 131n, where Dutch merchants were declared bankrupt in Amsterdam, and the Dutch curator was held entitled to recover an English debt in priority to an English creditor of the merchants who had attached the debt after the bankruptcy: see Nadelmann, Conflict of Laws: International and Interstate (1972), p 273; Blom-Cooper, Bankruptcy in Private International Law (1954), pp 107-108.

In Galbraith v Grimshaw [1910] AC 508 Lord Dunedin said that there should be only one universal process of the distribution of a bankrupt’s property and that, where such a process was pending elsewhere, the English courts should not allow steps to be taken in its jurisdiction which would interfere with that process (p 513):

“Now so far as the general principle is concerned it is quite consistent with the comity of nations that it should be a rule of international law that if the court finds that there is already pending a process of universal distribution of a bankrupt’s effects it should not allow steps to be taken in its territory which would interfere with that process of universal distribution.”

Second, in the case of corporations the English courts have exercised a winding up jurisdiction which is wider than that which at common law they have accorded to foreign courts. The court exercises jurisdiction to wind up a foreign company if there is a sufficient connection between the company and England, there are persons who would benefit from the making of a winding up order, and there are persons interested in the distribution of assets of the company who are persons over whom the court can exercise jurisdiction: see Dicey, 15th ed, para 30R-036. But as regards foreign liquidations, the general rule is that the English court recognises at common law only the authority of a liquidator appointed under the law of the place of incorporation (Dicey, 15th ed, para 30R-100). That is in contrast to the modern approach in the primary international and regional instruments, the EC Insolvency Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings (Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000) (“the EC Insolvency Regulation”) and the Model Law, which is that the jurisdiction with international competence is that of the country of the centre of main interests of the debtor (an expression not without its own difficulties). It is ultimately derived from the civil law concept of a trader’s domicile, and was adopted in substance in the draft EEC Convention of 1980 as a definition of the debtor’s centre of administration: see Report by M Lemontey on the draft EEC Bankruptcy Convention, Bulletin of the European Communities, Supp 2/82, p 58; American Law Institute, Transnational Insolvency: Global Principles for Co-operation in International Insolvency Cases (2012), Principle 13, pp 83 et seq.

Third, it is not only in recent times that there have been large insolvency proceedings with significant cross-border implications. Even before then there were the Russian Bank cases in the 1930s (arising out of the nationalisation and dissolution of the banks by the Soviet Government) and the Barcelona Traction case in the 1940s and 1950s (see In re Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co Ltd (second phase) (Belgium v Spain) [1970] ICJ Rep 69), but there is no doubt that today international co-operation in cross-border insolvencies has become a pressing need. It is only necessary to recall the bankruptcies or liquidations of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Maxwell Communications, or Lehman Brothers, each with international businesses, assets in many countries, and potentially competing creditors in different countries with different laws. There is not only a need to balance all these interests but also to provide swift and effective remedies to combat the use of cross-border transfers of assets to evade and to defraud creditors.

Fourth, there is no international unanimity or significant harmonisation on the details of insolvency law, because to a large extent insolvency law reflects national public policy, for example as regards priorities or as regards the conditions for the application of avoidance provisions: “the process of collection of assets will include, for example, the use of powers to set aside voidable dispositions, which may differ very considerably from those in the English statutory scheme”: In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 19, per Lord Hoffmann.

Fifth, there has been a trend, but only a trend, to what is called universalism, that is, the “administration of multinational insolvencies by a leading court applying a single bankruptcy law”: Westbrook, “A Global Solution to Multinational Default” (2000) 98 Mich L Rev 2276, 2277. What has emerged is what is called by specialists “modified universalism.”

The meaning of the expression “universalism” has undergone a change since the time it was first used in the 19th century, and it later came to be contrasted with the “doctrine of unity.” In 1834 Story referred to the theory that assignments under bankrupt or insolvent laws were, and ought to be, of universal operation to transfer movable property, in whatever country it might be situate, and concluded that there was great wisdom in adopting the rule that an assignment in bankruptcy should operate as a complete and valid transfer of all his movable property abroad, as well as at home, and for a country to prefer an attaching domestic creditor to a foreign assignee or to foreign creditors could “hardly be deemed consistent with the general comity of nations … [T]he true rule is, to follow out the lead of the general principle that makes the law of the owner’s domicil conclusive upon the disposition of his personal property,” citing Solomons v Ross as supporting that doctrine: Story, Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, 1st ed (1834), pp 340-341, para 406.

Professor Cheshire, in his first edition (Cheshire, Private International Law, 1935, pp 375-376), said that although English law “neglects the doctrine of unity it recognizes the doctrine of universality.” What he meant was that English law was committed to separate independent bankruptcies in countries where the assets were situate, rather than one bankruptcy in the country of the domicile (the doctrine of unity), but also accepted the title of the foreign trustee to English movables provided that no bankruptcy proceedings had begun within England (universality). He cited Solomons v Ross for this proposition:

“The English Courts … have consistently applied the doctrine of universality, according to which they hold that all movable property, no matter where it may be situated at the time of the assignment by the foreign law, passes to the trustee.”

In In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 30, Lord Hoffmann said:

“The primary rule of private international law which seems to me applicable to this case is the principle of (modified) universalism, which has been the golden thread running through English cross-border insolvency law since the 18th century. That principle requires that English courts should, so far as is consistent with justice and UK public policy, co-operate with the courts in the country of the principal liquidation to ensure that all the company’s assets are distributed to its creditors under a single system of distribution.”

and in Cambridge Gas Transportation Corporation v Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Navigator Holdings plc [2006] UKPC 26, [2007] 1 AC 508, para 16 he said, speaking for the Privy Council:

“The English common law has traditionally taken the view that fairness between creditors requires that, ideally, bankruptcy proceedings should have universal application. There should be a single bankruptcy in which all creditors are entitled and required to prove. No one should have an advantage because he happens to live in a jurisdiction where more of the assets or fewer of the creditors are situated …”

The US Bankruptcy Court accepted in Re Maxwell Communication Corp, 170 BR 800 (Bankr SDNY 1994) that the United States courts have adopted modified universalism as the approach to international insolvency:

“… the United States in ancillary bankruptcy cases has embraced an approach to international insolvency which is a modified form of universalism accepting the central premise of universalism, that is, that assets should be collected and distributed on a worldwide basis, but reserving to local courts discretion to evaluate the fairness of home country procedures and to protect the interests of local creditors.”

Jurisdiction in international bankruptcy has been the subject of multilateral international instruments at least since the Montevideo Treaty on International Commercial Law of 1889, Title X, although bilateral treaties go back much further, and the subject of international recognition and co-operation in insolvency was the subject of early discussion by the International Law Association (1879), the Institut de droit international (1888-1912) and the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1904): Nadelmann, op. cit. pp 299 et seq.

In more modern times, the European Convention on Certain International Aspects of Bankruptcy (the Istanbul Convention) was concluded under the auspices of the Council of Europe in 1990, but never came into force. The European Community/Union initiative took 40 years to come to fruition. In 1960 the European Community embarked on a project for a Bankruptcy Convention, which resulted in a draft Convention in 1980, to which there was significant opposition. But the project was renewed in 1989, and this led to the tabling of a draft Convention in 1995, which provided that it would only come into force when signed by all 15 of the then member states. The United Kingdom, however, alone of the states, did not sign the Convention (for political reasons), and it never came into force. In 1999 the project was re-launched as a Council Regulation, which resulted in the EC Insolvency Regulation in 2000.

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) adopted a Model Law on cross-border insolvency in 1997. The Model Law was adopted following initiatives in the 1980s by the International Bar Association and later by INSOL International (the International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Professionals). In 1993 UNCITRAL adopted a resolution to investigate the feasibility of harmonised rules of cross-border insolvencies. In 1994 an expert committee was assembled consisting of members of INSOL and representatives of the UNCITRAL Secretariat, and following a series of reports and drafts, UNCITRAL adopted the Model Law in May 1997. The Model Law provides for a wide range of assistance to foreign courts and office-holders. It has been implemented by 19 countries and territories, including the United States and Great Britain (although by some states only on the basis of reciprocity). It was not enacted into law in Great Britain until 2006, by the CBIR.

Apart from the EC Insolvency Regulation, none of these instruments deals expressly with the enforcement of judgments in insolvency proceedings. The question whether the Model Law does so by implication will be considered below in section IV.

Consequently, there are four main methods under English law for assisting insolvency proceedings in other jurisdictions, two of which are part of regionally or internationally agreed schemes. First, section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides a statutory power to assist corporate as well as personal insolvency proceedings in countries specified in the Act or designated for that purpose by the Secretary of State. All the countries to which it currently applies are common law countries or countries sharing a common legal tradition with England. They include Australia: the Co-operation of Insolvency Courts (Designation of Relevant Countries and Territories) Order 1986 (SI 1986/2123).

Second, the EC Insolvency Regulation applies to insolvency proceedings in respect of debtors with their centres of main interests (COMI) within the European Union (excluding Denmark). The EC Insolvency Regulation has no role in the present appeal because none of the debtors has its centre of main interests in the European Union.

Third, the CBIR came into force on 4 April 2006, implementing the Model Law. The CBIR supplement the common law, but do not supersede it. Article 7 of the Model Law provides: “Nothing in this Law limits the power of a court or British insolvency officeholder to provide additional assistance to a foreign representative under other laws of Great Britain”.

Article 23 of the Model Law allows avoidance claims to be made by foreign representatives under the Insolvency Act 1986, and the CBIR apply to preferences after they came into force on 4 April 2006. The UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment (to which resort may be had for the purposes of interpretation of the CBIR) also emphasises that the Model Law enables enacting states to make available to foreign insolvency proceedings the type of relief which would be available in the case of a domestic insolvency (UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law (2005), Annex III, Ch IV, p 311, para 20(b)):

“The Model Law presents to enacting states the possibility of aligning the relief resulting from recognition of a foreign proceeding with the relief available in a comparable proceeding in the national law.”

Fourth, at common law the court has power to recognise and grant assistance to foreign insolvency proceedings. The common law principle is that assistance may be given to foreign officeholders in insolvencies with an international element. The underlying principle has been stated in different ways: “recognition … carries with it the active assistance of the court”: In re African Farms Ltd [1906] TS 373, 377; “This court … will do its utmost to co-operate with the United States Bankruptcy Court and avoid any action which might disturb the orderly administration of [the company] in Texas under ch 11”: Banque Indosuez SA v Ferromet Resources Inc [1993] BCLC 112, 117.

In Credit Suisse Fides Trust v Cuoghi [1998] QB 818, 827, Millett LJ said:

“In other areas of law, such as cross-border insolvency, commercial necessity has encouraged national courts to provide assistance to each other without waiting for such co-operation to be sanctioned by international convention … It is becoming widely accepted that comity between the courts of different countries requires mutual respect for the territorial integrity of each other’s jurisdiction, but that this should not inhibit a court in one jurisdiction from rendering whatever assistance it properly can to a court in another in respect of assets located or persons resident within the territory of the former.”

The common law assistance cases have been concerned with such matters as the vesting of English assets in a foreign officeholder, or the staying of local proceedings, or orders for examination in support of the foreign proceedings, or orders for the remittal of assets to a foreign liquidation, and have involved cases in which the foreign court was a court of competent jurisdiction in the sense that the bankrupt was domiciled in the foreign country or, if a company, was incorporated there.

An early case of recognition was Solomons v Ross 1 H B1 131n, where, as I have said, the bankruptcy was in Holland, and the bankrupts were Dutch merchants declared bankrupt in Amsterdam, and the Dutch curator was held entitled to recover an English debt: see also Bergerem v Marsh (1921) B&CR 195 (English member of Belgian firm submitted to Belgian bankruptcy proceedings: movable property in England vested in Belgian trustee).

One group of cases involved local proceedings which were stayed or orders which were discharged because of foreign insolvency proceedings. Thus in Banque Indosuez SA v Ferromet Resources Inc [1993] BCLC 112 an English injunction against a Texas corporation in Chapter 11 proceedings was discharged; cf In re African Farms Ltd [1906] TS 373 (execution in Transvaal by creditor in proceedings against English company in liquidation in England stayed by Transvaal court), applied in Turners & Growers Exporters Ltd v The Ship Cornelis Verolme [1997] 2 NZLR 110 (Belgian shipowner in Belgian bankruptcy: ship released from arrest); Modern Terminals (Berth 5) Ltd v States Steamship Co [1979] HKLR 512 (stay in Hong Kong of execution against Nevada corporation in Chapter 11 proceedings in United States federal court in California), followed in CCIC Finance Ltd v Guangdong International Trust & Investment Corpn [2005] 2 HKC 589 (stay of Hong Kong proceedings against Chinese state owned enterprise in Mainland insolvency). Cases of judicial assistance in the traditional sense include In re Impex Services Worldwide Ltd [2004] BPIR 564, where a Manx order for examination and production of documents was made in aid of the provisional liquidation in England of an English company.

Cases involving remittal of assets from England to a foreign office-holder include In re Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA (No 10) [1997] Ch 213 (Luxembourg liquidation of Luxembourg company); and In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852 (the view of Lord Hoffmann and Lord Walker) (Australian liquidation of Australian insurance company); and In re SwissAir Schweizerische Luftverkehr-Aktiengesellschaft [2009] EWHC 2099 (Ch), [2010] BCC 667 (Swiss liquidation of Swiss company).

The opinion of Lord Hoffmann, speaking for the Privy Council, in Cambridge Gas Transportation Corpn v Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Navigator Holdings plc [2006] UKPC 26, [2007] 1 AC 508 (“Cambridge Gas”) and his speech in the House of Lords in In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852 (“HIH”) have played such a major role in the decisions of the Court of Appeal and in the arguments of the parties on these appeals that it is appropriate to put them in context at this point.

The broad facts of Cambridge Gas were these. In 1997 a shipping business was initiated by a Swiss businessman, Mr Giovanni Mahler. The investors borrowed $300m on the New York bond market and the business bought five gas transport vessels. The venture was a failure, and ended with a Chapter 11 proceeding in the US Bankruptcy Court in New York. The question for the Privy Council on appeal from the Isle of Man was whether an order of the New York court was entitled to implementation in the Isle of Man.

The corporate structure of the business was that the investors owned, directly or indirectly, a Bahamian company called Vela Energy Holdings Ltd (“Vela”). Vela owned (through an intermediate Bahamian holding company) Cambridge Gas, a Cayman Islands company.

Cambridge Gas owned directly or indirectly about 70% of the shares of Navigator Holdings plc (“Navigator”), an Isle of Man company. Navigator owned all the shares of an Isle of Man company which in turn owned companies which each owned one ship.

In 2003 Navigator petitioned the US Bankruptcy Court for relief under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, which allows insolvent companies, under supervision of the court and under cover of a moratorium, to negotiate a plan of reorganisation with their creditors. The petition was initiated by the investor interests, who proposed a plan to sell the ships nominally by auction but in fact to the previous investors, but the bondholders did not accept this and proposed their own plan under which the assets of Navigator would be vested in the creditors and the equity interests of the previous investors would be extinguished. The judge rejected the investors’ plan and approved the creditors’ plan.

The mechanism which the plan used to vest the assets in the creditors was to vest the shares in Navigator in their representatives, ie, the creditors’ committee. That would enable them to control the shipping companies and implement the plan. The plan provided that upon entry of the confirmation order title to all the common stock of Navigator would vest in the creditors’ committee to enable it to implement the plan. The order of the New York court confirming the plan recorded the intention of the court to send a letter of request to the Manx court asking for assistance in giving effect to “the plan and confirmation order” and such a letter was sent. The committee of creditors then petitioned the Manx court for an order vesting the shares in their representatives.

At this point it is necessary to emphasise two features of the case. The first feature is that Navigator was an Isle of Man company and 70% of its common stock was owned directly or indirectly by Cambridge Gas. Under the normal principles of the conflict of laws the shares would have been situate in the Isle of Man: Dicey, 15th ed, para 22-045. That is why Lord Hoffmann said, at para 6, that the New York court was aware that the order vesting title to the common stock of Navigator in the creditors’ committee could not automatically have effect under the law of the Isle of Man; and also why he accepted (paras 12-13) that if the judgment were a judgment in rem it could not affect title to shares in the Isle of Man.

The second feature which it is necessary to emphasise is that Cambridge Gas was a Cayman Islands company which (as held by the Manx courts) had not submitted to the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court. Lord Hoffmann said, at para 8, that the position that Cambridge Gas had not submitted to the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court bore little relation to economic reality since the New York proceedings had been conducted on the basis that the contest was between rival plans put forward by the shareholders and the creditors; Vela, the parent company of Cambridge Gas, participated in the Chapter 11 proceedings; and they had been instituted by Navigator. Consequently the claim by Cambridge Gas that it had not submitted was highly technical, but there was no appeal from the decisions of the Manx courts that it had not submitted. But Lord Hoffmann also accepted that if the order of the US Bankruptcy Court were to be regarded as a judgment in personam it would not be entitled to recognition or enforcement in the Isle of Man because “the New York court had no personal jurisdiction over Cambridge [Gas]”: para 10.

Nevertheless the Privy Council held that the plan could be carried into effect in the Isle of Man. The reasoning was as follows: first, if the judgment had to be classified as in personam or in rem the appeal would have to be allowed, but bankruptcy proceedings did not fall into either category:

“[13] … Judgments in rem and in personam are judicial determinations of the existence of rights: in the one case, rights over property and in the other, rights against a person. When a judgment in rem or in personam is recognised by a foreign court, it is accepted as establishing the right which it purports to have determined, without further inquiry into the grounds upon which it did so. The judgment itself is treated as the source of the right.

[14] The purpose of bankruptcy proceedings, on the other hand, is not to determine or establish the existence of rights, but to provide a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights are admitted or established.…

[15] … [B]ankruptcy, whether personal or corporate, is a collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them. Of course, as Brightman LJ pointed out in In re Lines Bros Ltd [1983] Ch 1, 20, it may incidentally be necessary in the course of bankruptcy proceedings to establish rights which are challenged: proofs of debt may be rejected; or there may be a dispute over whether or not a particular item of property belonged to the debtor and is available for distribution. There are procedures by which these questions may be tried summarily within the bankruptcy proceedings or directed to be determined by ordinary action. But these again are incidental procedural matters and not central to the purpose of the proceedings.”

Second, the principle of universality underlay the common law principles of judicial assistance in international insolvency, and those principles were sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the Manx court to assist, by doing whatever it could have done in the case of a domestic insolvency: paras 21-22. Third, exactly the same result could have been achieved by a scheme under the Isle of Man Companies Act 1931. Fourth, it was no objection to implementation of the plan in the Isle of Man that the shares in Navigator belonged to a person (Cambridge Gas) which was not a party to the bankruptcy proceedings for these reasons, at para 26:

“… [A] share is the measure of the shareholder’s interest in the company: a bundle of rights against the company and the other shareholders. As against the outside world, that bundle of rights is an item of property a chose in action. But as between the shareholder and the company itself, the shareholder’s rights may be varied or extinguished by the mechanisms provided by the articles of association or the Companies Act. One of those mechanisms is the scheme of arrangement under section 152 [of the Isle of Man Companies Act 1931]. As a shareholder Cambridge is bound by the transactions into which the company has entered, including a plan under Chapter 11 or a scheme under section 152.”

At this point it is necessary to point out that the opinion in Cambridge Gas does not articulate any reason for holding that, in the eyes of the Manx court, the US Bankruptcy Court had international jurisdiction in either of two relevant senses.

The first sense is the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court in relation to the Chapter 11 proceedings themselves. The entity which was in Chapter 11 was Navigator. The English courts exercise a wider jurisdiction in bankruptcy and (especially) in winding up than they recognise in foreign courts. At common law, the foreign court which is recognised as having jurisdiction in personal bankruptcy is the court of the bankrupt’s domicile or the court to which the bankrupt submitted (Dicey, 15th ed, para 31R-059) and the foreign court with corresponding jurisdiction over corporations is the court of the place of incorporation (Dicey, 15th ed, para 30R-100). Under United States law the US Bankruptcy Court has jurisdiction over a “debtor”, and such a debtor must reside or have a domicile or place of business, or property in the United States. From the standpoint of English law, the US Bankruptcy Court had international jurisdiction because although Navigator was not incorporated in the United States, it had submitted to the jurisdiction by initiating the proceedings.

The second sense in which international jurisdiction is relevant is the jurisdiction over the third party, Cambridge Gas, and its shares in Navigator. Cambridge Gas was not incorporated in the United States, and it was held by the Isle of Man courts that it had not submitted to the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court (and this was, as I have said, accepted with evident reluctance by the Privy Council). The property which was the subject of the order of the US Bankruptcy Court was shares in an Isle of Man company. Consequently the property dealt with by the US Bankruptcy Court was situate, by Manx rules of the conflict of laws, in the Isle of Man, and the shareholder relationship was governed by Manx law.

Cambridge Gas was the subject of brief comment a few months later by the Privy Council in Pattni v Ali [2006] UKPC 51, [2007] 2 AC 85. The decision in that case was simply that a Kenyan judgment deciding that A was bound to sell shares in a Manx company to B was entitled to recognition in the Isle of Man. It resulted in an order in personam against a person subject to the jurisdiction of the Kenyan court, and was not a judgment in rem against property in the Isle of Man and outside the jurisdiction of the Kenyan court, because the fact that a judicial determination determines or relates to the existence of property rights between parties does not in itself mean that it is in rem. Lord Mance, speaking for the Board, said, at para 23:

“In Cambridge Gas … the Board touched on the concepts of in personam and in rem proceedings, but held that the bankruptcy order with which it was concerned fell into neither category. Its purpose was simply to establish a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights were admitted or established.”

The decision in HIH does not deal with foreign judgments. HIH concerned four Australian insurance companies which were being wound up in Australia and in respect of which provisional liquidators had been appointed in England. The question was whether the English court had power to direct remission of assets collected in England to Australia, notwithstanding that there were differences between the English and Australian statutory regimes for distribution which meant that some creditors would benefit from remission whilst some creditors would be worse off. The House of Lords unanimously directed that remission should take place, but the reasons differed.

The reasoning of the majority (Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, with Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers agreeing)) was based exclusively on the statutory power to assist foreign insolvency proceedings under section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986, but Lord Hoffmann (with whom Lord Walker agreed) also considered that such a power existed at common law.

Lord Hoffmann characterised the principle of universality as a principle of English private international law that, where possible, there should be a unitary insolvency proceeding in the courts of the insolvent’s domicile which receives worldwide recognition and which should apply universally to all the bankrupt’s assets, at para 6:

“Despite the absence of statutory provision, some degree of international co-operation in corporate insolvency had been achieved by judicial practice. This was based upon what English judges have for many years regarded as a general principle of private international law, namely that bankruptcy (whether personal or corporate) should be unitary and universal. There should be a unitary bankruptcy proceeding in the court of the bankrupt's domicile which receives worldwide recognition and it should apply universally to all the bankrupt's assets.”

Other parts of Lord Hoffmann’s speech have already been quoted above, and it is only necessary for present purposes to recall that he said that (a) “the process of collection of assets will include, for example, the use of powers to set aside voidable dispositions, which may differ very considerably from those in the English statutory scheme” (at para 19) and (b) that the purpose of the principle of universality was to ensure that the debtor’s assets were distributed under one scheme of distribution, and that the principle required that English courts should co-operate with the courts in the country of the principal liquidation to ensure that all the company’s assets are distributed to its creditors under a single system of distribution: para 30.

The decision in Cambridge Gas was not applied by the Supreme Court of Ireland in In re Flightlease (Ireland) Ltd [2012] IESC 12 (to which I shall revert) and has been subject to academic criticism. Professor Briggs has expressed the view ((2006) 77 BYIL 575, 581) that

“the decision in [Cambridge Gas] is wrong, for it requires a Manx court to give effect to a confiscation order made by a foreign court of property belonging to a person who was not subject to the personal jurisdiction of the foreign court. That a Manx court could have done so itself is nothing to the point.”

I shall return to the question whether it was correctly decided.

Eurofinance SA is a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. It was established by Adrian Roman, the second appellant on the Rubin appeal. Eurofinance SA settled “The Consumers Trust” (“TCT”) under a deed of trust made in 2002 under English law, with trustees resident in England, of whom two were accountants and two were solicitors.

TCT was established to carry on a sales promotion scheme in the USA and Canada. The class of beneficiaries was made up of persons who had successfully participated in the scheme by claiming validly in certain sales promotions owned and operated by Eurofinance SA. The trustees were to hold the capital and income of TCT for the beneficiaries and subject thereto for Eurofinance SA as beneficiary in default. The promotion, known as the Cashable Voucher Programme, was entered into with participating merchants in the United States and Canada who, when they sold products or services to their customers, offered those customers a cashable voucher comprising a rebate of up to 100% of the purchase price for the product or service. Under the terms of the voucher the rebate was to be paid to customers in three years’ time provided that certain conditions were followed by the customer involving the completion by the customer of both memory and comprehension tests.

The participating merchants paid TCT 15% of the face value of each cashable voucher issued by the merchant during a week. TCT retained 40% of the payments received (ie 6% of the face value of each cashable voucher). About one half of the 60% balance received from merchants was paid to Eurofinance SA (and so effectively to Adrian Roman) and the remainder was paid to others involved in the operation of the programme, such as solicitors, accountants and US lawyers. From about 2002 Adrian Roman’s sons, Nicholas Roman and Justin Roman, each began to receive about 2%. The trustees maintained bank accounts in the USA and Canada where the payments they had received from merchants were kept.

Since the trustees only retained 6% of the face value of the issued vouchers, the success of the scheme necessarily involved the consumers either forgetting to redeem the vouchers or being unsuccessful in navigating the process required to be followed in order to obtain payment. When the scheme folded in 2005 the trustees held nearly US$10m in bank accounts in the United States and Canada.

By about 2005 TCT’s business ceased after the Attorney General of Missouri brought proceedings under Missouri’s consumer protection legislation which resulted in a settlement involving a payment by the trustees of US$1,650,000 and US$200,000 in costs.

When it became clear that further proceedings were likely to be brought by Attorneys General in other states, that the number of consumer claims would increase, and that TCT would not have sufficient funds to meet all the valid claims of its beneficiaries, in November 2005 Adrian Roman caused Eurofinance to apply for the appointment by the High Court of the respondents on the Rubin appeal, David Rubin and Henry Lan, as receivers of TCT for the purposes of causing TCT then to obtain protection under Chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Code (“Chapter 11”). The English court was told that Chapter 11 reorganisation proceedings would result in an automatic stay of proceedings against TCT, would enable the receivers to reject unprofitable or burdensome executory contracts, and might result in the recovery as preferential payments of sums paid to consumers and to the Missouri Attorney General.

In November 2005 the respondents were appointed as receivers by order of Lewison J, and in the following month, the respondents and the trustees then caused TCT to present a voluntary petition to the US Bankruptcy Court for relief under Chapter 11. TCT was placed into Chapter 11 proceedings in New York as virtually all of its 60,000 creditors were located in the United States or Canada as were its assets. As a matter of United States bankruptcy law, TCT could be the subject matter of a petition for relief under Chapter 11 as a debtor. This is because a trust such as TCT is treated under Chapter 11 as a separate legal entity under the classification of a “business trust”.

A joint plan of liquidation for TCT was prepared, and in September 2007 Lewison J ordered that the respondents (as receivers) be at liberty to seek approval of the plan from the US Bankruptcy Court. Under the terms of the plan the respondents were appointed legal representatives of TCT and given the power to commence, prosecute and resolve all causes of action against potential defendants including the appellants. The US Bankruptcy Court approved the plan in October 2007, and appointed the respondents as “foreign representatives” of the debtor to make application to the Chancery Division in London for recognition of the Chapter 11 proceedings as a foreign main proceeding under the CBIR; and to seek aid, assistance and co-operation from the High Court in connection with the Chapter 11 proceedings, and, in particular to seek the High Court’s assistance and co-operation in the prosecution of litigation which might be commenced in the US Bankruptcy Court including “the enforcement of judgments of this court that may be obtained against persons and entities residing or owning property in Great Britain …”

In December 2007 proceedings were commenced in the US Bankruptcy Court by the issue of a complaint against a number of defendants including the appellants. These claims fall within the category of “adversary proceedings” under the US bankruptcy legislation, and I will use this term to refer to them. The adversary proceedings comprised a number of claims including causes of action arising under the US Bankruptcy Code, which related to funds received by TCT from merchants which were paid out to the defendants (including the appellants), or to amounts transferred to the defendants within one year prior to the commencement of the TCT bankruptcy case including the appellants.

The defendants were the appellants and other parties involved with the programme. The appellants were served personally with the complaint commencing the adversary proceedings but did not defend, or participate, in the adversary proceedings, although it appears from a judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court that Eurofinance SA had filed a notice of appearance in the main Chapter 11 proceedings (Order of 22 July 2008, paras 42-43).

On 22 July 2008 default and summary judgment was entered against the appellants in the adversary proceedings by the US Bankruptcy Court. The US Bankruptcy Court entered a judgment against the appellants on the ten counts of the complaint.

In November 2008 the respondents applied as foreign representatives to the Chancery Division for, inter alia, (a) an order that the Chapter 11 proceedings be recognised as a “foreign main proceeding” (b) an order that the respondents be recognised as “foreign representatives” within the meaning of article 2(j) of the Model Law in relation to those proceedings; and (c) an order that the US Bankruptcy Court’s judgment be enforced as a judgment of the English court in accordance with CPR Pts 70 and 73.

Nicholas Strauss QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the Chancery Division, recognised the Chapter 11 proceedings (including the adversary proceedings) as foreign main proceedings, and the respondents as foreign representatives, but refused to enforce the judgments in the adversary proceedings because (a) at common law the English court will not enforce a judgment in personam contrary to the normal jurisdictional rules for foreign judgments; and (b) there was nothing in CBIR, articles 21(e) (realisation of assets) and 25 (judicial co-operation), which justified the enforcement of judgments in insolvency proceedings.

At first instance the respondents sought to enforce the entirety of the US Bankruptcy Court’s judgment, but before the Court of Appeal they sought an order for the enforcement of those parts of the judgment which were based on state or federal avoidance laws, including fraudulent conveyance under State Fraudulent Conveyance Laws, and under federal law, namely fraudulent transfers under section 548(a) of 11 USC; liability of transferees of avoided transfers under section 550; fraudulent transfers under section 548(b) and liability of transferees of avoided transfers under section 550.

The Court of Appeal (Ward and Wilson LJJ and Henderson J) allowed an appeal, and held that the judgment was enforceable: [2010] EWCA Civ 895, [2011] Ch 133.

In the New Cap appeal the appellants are members of Lloyd’s Syndicate Number 991 (“the Syndicate”) for the 1997 and 1998 years of account. The respondents are a reinsurance company (“New Cap”) and its liquidator, a partner in Ernst & Young in Sydney.

New Cap is an Australian company, which was licensed as an insurance company in Australia under the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (“the Australian Act”). New Cap did not conduct insurance business in any country other than Australia, and the majority of New Cap's business was generated through reinsurance brokers conducting business in Australia and the balance was generated from overseas insurance brokers.

New Cap reinsured the Syndicate in relation to losses occurring on risks attaching during the 1997 and 1998 years of account under reinsurance contracts which were subject to English law, and contained London arbitration clauses and also (oddly) English jurisdiction clauses. The reinsurance contracts were placed with New Cap by the Syndicate’s Australian broker, which was the sub-broker for the Syndicate’s London broker.

Each reinsurance contract contained a commutation clause. The Syndicate and New Cap entered into a commutation agreement to commute the reinsurances with effect from 11 December 1998. Under the commutation agreement, New Cap agreed to make a lump sum payment to the Syndicate by 31 December 1998 in consideration for its release from liability under the reinsurance contracts. The payments were calculated on the basis of a 7.5% discount and a deduction from premium. New Cap made payment pursuant to the commutation agreements in two instalments of US$2,000,000 and US$3,980,600 in January 1999. The commutation payments were made from a bank account held by New Cap at the Sydney branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to a bank account in London.

The second respondent was appointed the administrator of New Cap by a resolution of its directors in April 1999. In September 1999 the creditors of New Cap resolved that New Cap be wound up and the second respondent (“the liquidator”) was appointed its liquidator. Under the Australian legislation, the winding up is deemed to have commenced on the day on which the administration began.

In April 2002 the liquidator caused proceedings to be commenced against the Syndicate in the Supreme Court of New South Wales alleging that because New Cap was insolvent when the commutation payments were made in January 1999, and because those payments were made within the period of six months ending on the date when the administrator was appointed, they constituted unfair preferences and were thus “voidable transactions” under Part 5.7B of the Australian Act.

The Syndicate (which does not accept that the payments were preferences) refused to accept service of the Australian proceedings. The liquidator obtained leave from the Australian court to serve the Australian proceedings on the Syndicate’s English solicitors in London. The Syndicate did not enter an appearance to the proceedings, but corresponded with the liquidator’s solicitors, including commenting on an Independent Expert’s Report to be used by the respondents as evidence of New Cap’s insolvency in all of the avoidance proceedings including the proceedings against the Syndicate.

The Australian court (White J in a judgment in September 2008, and Barrett J in a judgment in July 2009) recognised that there had been no submission by the Syndicate to the jurisdiction of the Australian court in that it did not enter an appearance, but White J held that the Australian court had jurisdiction over the Syndicate because a cause of action available under the Australian Act for the recovery of a preferential payment to an overseas party made when the company is insolvent was a cause of action which arose in New South Wales for the purposes of the New South Wales provisions for service out of the jurisdiction.

Barrett J gave a reasoned judgment in July 2009 holding the Syndicate liable. After the respondents had been given leave to re-open their case so that the orders made by the Australian court would more accurately reflect the differences between those appellants who were members of the Syndicate for the 1997 year of account and those appellants who were members for the 1998 year of account, the Australian court entered final judgment against the Syndicate in its absence on 11 September 2009. The Australian judgment declared that the commutation payments were voidable transactions within the meaning of part 5.7B of the Australian Act and ordered the Syndicate to repay the amount of the commutation payments to the liquidator together with interest.

On the liquidator’s application the Australian court issued, in October 2009, a letter of request to the High Court in England and Wales requesting that the court “act in aid of and assist” the Australian court and exercise jurisdiction under section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986 by: (1) ordering the Syndicate to pay the sums specified in the Australian judgment; alternatively (2) allowing the liquidator to commence fresh proceedings under the Australian Act in the English Court; (3) granting such further and other relief as the High Court may consider just; and (4) making such further or other orders as may, in the opinion of the High Court, be necessary or appropriate to give effect to the foregoing orders.

On 30 July 2010, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in Rubin. As a result, the respondents' alternative application for permission to commence fresh proceedings against the Syndicate under the Australian Act in England pursuant to section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986 was adjourned generally, and the respondents were granted permission to seek relief at common law as an alternative to relief under section 426.

In New Cap Lewison J and the Court of Appeal were bound by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Rubin. Lewison J held: (a) the judgment was not enforceable under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 because, although it applied to Australian judgments, it did not apply to orders made in insolvency proceedings; but (b) the judgment was enforceable under the assistance provision of section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986 and also at common law: [2011] EWHC 677 (Ch).

The Court of Appeal (Mummery, Lloyd and Macfarlane LJJ) affirmed Lewison J’s judgment on these grounds: (a) the 1933 Act applied, and registration would not be set aside for lack of jurisdiction in the foreign court, because of the Rubin decision; (b) section 426 could also be used and was not excluded by section 6 of the 1933 Act; (c) but section 6 would preclude an action at common law; (d) it was not necessary to decide whether the court’s power of assistance at common law was exercisable where the statutory power was available: [2011] EWCA Civ 971, [2012] 2 WLR 1095.

This court gave permission for intervention by a written submission on behalf of Mr Irving Picard (“the trustee”), the trustee for the liquidation in the United States under the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970 (“SIPA”) of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“Madoff”), which was Bernard Madoff’s broking company. The trustee is seeking to enforce at common law in Gibraltar judgments of the US Bankruptcy Court against Vizcaya Partners Ltd (“Vizcaya”), a BVI company, for $180m, and against Asphalia Fund Ltd (“Asphalia”), a Cayman Islands company, for $67m, representing alleged preferential payments. He is also seeking to enforce a US Bankruptcy Court default judgment in excess of $1 billion in the Cayman Islands in Picard v Harley International (Cayman) Ltd. The Gibraltar and Cayman Islands proceedings have been adjourned to await the outcome of the present appeals.

In Picard v Vizcaya Partners Ltd proceedings have been brought in Gibraltar to enforce the default judgments against Vizcaya and Asphalia because $73m is held there on behalf of Vizcaya which the trustee maintains is available to satisfy the judgments. Vizcaya and Asphalia have also, with the permission of the court, intervened by written submission.

There is no agreed statement of facts relating to this aspect of the case, and nothing which is said here about the facts should be taken as representing or reflecting any finding. According to Vizcaya and Asphalia the position is as follows. Between 2002 and 2007, a bank in Europe, acting as a custodian trustee for Vizcaya, sent $327m to Madoff for investment in securities. Unknown to the bank, or to Vizcaya, or its shareholder Asphalia, Madoff had been engaged in a Ponzi scheme for some 30 years, and their money was never invested in securities. In 2008, at the time of the credit crunch and the banking crisis, the custodian trustee withdrew $180m (leaving $147m with Madoff) and $67m of the $180m was paid to Asphalia.

In late 2008, the Madoff fraud came to light, and the trustee was appointed. The trustee targeted investors who had withdrawn investments from Madoff in the two years before its collapse in December 2008 as a source for recovery of “customer property” for the benefit of other investors who had not withdrawn their investments. The trustee commenced adversary proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court alleging preference and fraudulent conveyance against Vizcaya and Asphalia under SIPA and under the Bankruptcy Code, the effect of which, they say, is that (a) as the trustee argues, a person who, on the basis that he has received “customer money” has been required to repay a preference, does not necessarily become a “customer” and thereby entitled to share with other customers in the bankruptcy; and (b) the trustee may avoid a payment made by the bankrupt to a creditor 90 days before the commencement of the bankruptcy, irrespective of the intention with which the payment is made or received.

The trustee obtained judgments in default, and Vizcaya and Asphalia say that they took no part in the New York proceedings because they had no connection with New York, and in particular (a) Asphalia was not a customer of Madoff but a shareholder of Vizcaya; (b) arguably Vizcaya was not a customer since it had appointed the bank to act as custodian trustee and it was the bank which entered into contracts with Madoff.

The principal issue on these appeals is whether the rules at common law or under the 1933 Act regulating those foreign courts which are to be regarded as being competent for the purposes of enforcement of judgments apply to judgments in avoidance proceedings in insolvency, and, if not, what rules do apply (section V below). The other issues are whether, in the Rubin appeal, enforcement may be effected through the assistance provisions of the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (section VI) or, in the New Cap appeal, section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (section VII); whether the judgments are enforceable as a result of the submission by the judgment debtors to the jurisdiction of the foreign courts (section VIII); and, in the New Cap appeal, if the judgment is enforceable, whether enforcement is at common law or under the 1933 Act (section IX).

The Court of Appeal in the Rubin appeal decided that a foreign insolvency judgment could be enforced in England and Wales at common law against a defendant not subject to the jurisdiction of the foreign court under the traditional rule as formulated in the Dicey Rule.

As I have already said, on the Rubin appeal in the Court of Appeal the receivers sought only to enforce those parts of the judgment which in effect related to the avoidance causes of action. The Court of Appeal held that the judgment (as narrowed) was enforceable at common law. The reasoning was as follows: (a) the judgment was final and conclusive, and for definite sums of money, and on the face of the orders was a judgment in personam; (b) it was common ground that the judgment debtors were not resident (this was a slip for “present” since the action was at common law and not under the 1933 Act) when the proceedings were instituted, and did not submit to the jurisdiction, and so at first blush had an impregnable defence; (c) Cambridge Gas decided that the bankruptcy order with which it was concerned was neither in personam nor in rem, and its purpose was simply to establish a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights were admitted or established: Pattni v Ali [2006] UKPC 51, [2007] 2 AC 85, para 23; (d) bankruptcy was a collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them: Cambridge Gas [2006] UKPC 26, [2007] 1 AC 508, para 15; (e) the issue was whether avoidance proceedings which could only be brought by the representative of the bankrupt were to be characterised as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, ie part of the collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them; (f) the adversary proceedings were part and parcel of the Chapter 11 proceedings; (g) the ordinary rules for enforcing foreign judgments in personam did not apply to bankruptcy proceedings; (h) avoidance mechanisms were integral to and central to the collective nature of bankruptcy and were not merely incidental procedural matters; (i) the process of collection of assets will include the use of powers to set aside voidable dispositions, which may differ very considerably from those in the English statutory scheme: HIH [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 19; (j) the judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court was a judgment in, and for the purposes of, the collective enforcement regime of the insolvency proceedings, and was governed by the sui generis private international law rules relating to insolvency; (k) that was a desirable development of the common law founded on the principles of modified universalism, and did not require the court to enforce anything that it could not do, mutatis mutandis, in a domestic context; (l) there was a principle of private international law that bankruptcy should be unitary and universal, and there should be a unitary insolvency proceeding in the court of the bankrupt’s domicile which receives worldwide recognition and should apply universally to all the bankrupt’s assets; (m) there was a further principle that recognition carried with it the active assistance of the court which included assistance by doing whatever the English court could do in the case of a domestic insolvency; (n) there was no unfairness to the appellants in upholding the judgment because they were fully aware of the proceedings, and after taking advice chose not to participate: [2011] Ch 133, paras 38, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 61-62, 64. It was unnecessary to decide whether the judgment was enforceable under the CBIR: para 63.

In short, Ward LJ accepted that the judgment was an in personam judgment, but he decided that the Dicey Rule did not apply to foreign judgments in avoidance proceedings because they were central to the collective enforcement regime in insolvency and were governed by special rules.

The essential questions on this aspect of the appeals are these. Is the judgment in each case to be regarded as a judgment in personam within the scope of the traditional rules embodied in the Dicey Rule, or is it to be characterised as an insolvency order which is part of the bankruptcy proceedings, ie part of the collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them? Is that a distinction which has a role to play? Is there a distinction between claims which are central to the purpose of the proceedings and claims which are incidental procedural matters? As a matter of policy, should the court, in the interests of universality of insolvency proceedings, devise a rule for the recognition and enforcement of judgments in foreign insolvency proceedings which is more expansive, and more favourable to liquidators, trustees in bankruptcy, receivers and other officeholders, than the traditional common law rule embodied in the Dicey Rule, or should it be left to legislation preceded by any necessary consultation?

Ward LJ’s conclusion derives from a careful synthesis of dicta in Lord Hoffmann’s brilliantly expressed opinion in Cambridge Gas and his equally brilliant speech in HIH, each of which has on these appeals been subjected to an exceptionally detailed analysis. For reasons which will be developed, I do not agree with the conclusions which Ward LJ draws.

But I begin with two matters on which I accept the respondents’ analysis. The first is that avoidance proceedings have characteristics which distinguish them from ordinary claims such as claims in contract or tort. The second is that, if it were necessary to draw a distinction between insolvency orders and other orders, it would not be difficult to formulate criteria for the distinction, along similar lines to that drawn by the European Court in relation to the Brussels Convention, the Brussels I Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001) and the EC Insolvency Regulation.

In order to achieve a proper and fair distribution of assets between creditors, it will often be necessary to adjust prior transactions and to recover previous dispositions of property so as to constitute the estate which is available for distribution. The principle of equality among creditors which underlies the pari passu principle may require the adjustment of concluded transactions which but for the winding up of the company would have remained binding on the company, and the return to the company of payments made or property transferred under the transactions or the reversal of their effect. Systems of insolvency law use avoidance proceedings as mechanisms for adjusting prior transactions by the debtor and for recovering property disposed of by the debtor prior to the insolvency. Thus under the Insolvency Act 1986 an administrator, or liquidator, or trustee in bankruptcy may, where there has been a transaction at an undervalue, or amounting to an unlawful preference, apply for an order restoring the position to what it would have been had the transaction not taken place: sections 238 et seq and 339 et seq. Other systems of law have similar mechanisms, but they will differ in matters such as the period during which such transactions are at risk of reversal and the role of good faith of the parties to the transaction.

The underlying policy is to protect the general body of creditors against a diminution of the assets by a transaction which confers an unfair or improper advantage on the other party, and it is therefore an essential aspect of the process of liquidation that antecedent transactions whose consequences have been detrimental to the collective interest of the creditors should be amenable to adjustment or avoidance: Fletcher, Law of Insolvency, 4th ed (2009), para 26-002; Goode, Principles of Corporate Insolvency Law, 4th ed (2011), para 13-03.

Thus the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law (2005) says:

“150.

Many insolvency laws include provisions that apply retroactively from a particular date (such as the date of application for, or commencement of, insolvency proceedings) for a specified period of time (often referred to as the ‘suspect’ period) and are designed to overturn those past transactions to which the insolvent debtor was a party or which involved the debtor's assets where they have certain effects.…

151.

It is a generally accepted principle of insolvency law that collective action is more efficient in maximizing the assets available to creditors than a system that leaves creditors free to pursue their individual remedies and that it requires all like creditors to receive the same treatment. Provisions dealing with avoidance powers are designed to support these collective goals, ensuring that creditors receive a fair allocation of an insolvent debtor’s assets consistent with established priorities and preserving the integrity of the insolvency estate.”

In In re Condor Insurance Ltd, 601 F 3d 319, 326 (5th Cir 2010), the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that:

“Avoidance laws have the purpose and effect of re-ordering the distribution of a debtor’s assets … in favor of the collective priorities established by the distribution statute … [and] must be treated as an integral part of the entire bankruptcy system.”

In different phases of the Australian proceedings in New Cap Barrett J made similar points. He said that in an action for unfair preference under the Australian legislation the liquidator might obtain an order for the payment of money, but the action did not contemplate recovery in the sense applicable to damages and debts; and the proceedings sought to remedy or counter the effects of that depletion caused by the payment by New Cap: New Cap Reinsurance Corpn v Renaissance Reinsurance Ltd [2002] NSWSC 856, paras 23, 27. The order does not vindicate property rights which the company itself would have had prior to liquidation, but statutory rights which the liquidator has under the statutory scheme in consequence of winding up. The purpose of the order for the payment of money to a company in liquidation is not to compensate the company, but to adjust the rights of creditors among themselves in such a way as to eliminate the effects of favourable treatment afforded to one or more creditors, to the exclusion of others, in the period immediately before an insolvent administration commences: New Cap Reinsurance Corpn v Grant [2009] NSWSC 662, 257 ALR 740, paras 20-21.

I also accept that, if there were to be a separate rule for the recognition and enforcement of insolvency orders, it would not normally be difficult to distinguish between judgments in insolvency proceedings which are peculiarly the subject of insolvency law such as avoidance proceedings, and other judgments of the kind which are covered by the Dicey Rule.

In the context of the Brussels Convention, the Brussels I Regulation and the EC Insolvency Regulation, the European Court has developed a distinction between claims which derive directly from the bankruptcy or winding up, and which are closely connected with them, on the one hand, and those which do not, on the other hand, and the distinction has been applied by the English court. In my judgment, the distinction is a workable one which could be adapted to other contexts should it be useful or necessary to do so.

Claims which were regarded as bankruptcy claims have been held to include a claim under French law by a liquidator against a director to make good a deficiency in the assets of a company (Gourdain v Nadler (Case 133/78) [1979] ECR 733); or a claim under German law to set aside a transaction detrimental to creditors (Seagon v Deko Marty NV (Case C-339/07) [2009] 1 WLR 2168). Claims outside the category of bankruptcy claims have been held to include an action brought by a seller based on a reservation of title against a purchaser who was insolvent (German Graphics Graphische Maschinen GmbH v van der Schee (Case C-292/08) [2009] ECR I-8421) or a claim by a liquidator as to beneficial ownership of an asset (Byers v Yacht Bull Corp [2010] EWHC 133 (Ch), [2010] BCC 368). In Oakley v Ultra Vehicle Design Ltd [2005] EWHC 872 (Ch), [2006] BCC 57, Lloyd LJ (sitting as an additional judge of the Chancery Division) said, at para 42):

“it has been held that a claim by a liquidator to recover pre-liquidation debts, although made in the course of the winding up and so, in a sense, relating to it, does not derive directly from it and is therefore not excluded from the Brussels Convention (and therefore now not from the [Brussels I] Regulation) by article 1.2(b): see In re Hayward decd [1997] Ch 45, and UBS AG v Omni Holding AG [2000] 1 WLR 916. By contrast, proceedings by a liquidator against a director or a third party to set aside a transaction as having been effected at an undervalue or on the basis of wrongful or fraudulent trading would be claims deriving directly from the winding up and therefore excluded from the Brussels Convention and now from the [Brussels I] Regulation.”

I have already quoted the passage in Cambridge Gas in which Lord Hoffmann distinguished between judgments in rem and in personam, on the one hand, and judgments in bankruptcy proceedings, on the other, but it is necessary to repeat it at this point. He said:

“13.

… Judgments in rem and in personam are judicial determinations of the existence of rights: in the one case, rights over property and in the other, rights against a person. When a judgment in rem or in personam is recognised by a foreign court, it is accepted as establishing the right which it purports to have determined, without further inquiry into the grounds upon which it did so. The judgment itself is treated as the source of the right.

14.

The purpose of bankruptcy proceedings, on the other hand, is not to determine or establish the existence of rights, but to provide a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights are admitted or established.…”

There is no doubt that the order of the US Bankruptcy Court in Cambridge Gas did not fall into the category of an in personam order. Even though the question whether a foreign judgment is in personam or in rem is sometimes a difficult one (Dicey, 15th ed, para 14-109), that was not a personal order against its shareholders, including Cambridge Gas. The order vested the shares in Navigator in the creditors’ committee. It did not declare existing property rights. Indeed the whole purpose of what was the functional equivalent of a scheme of arrangement was to alter property rights. But it is not easy to see why it was not an in rem order in relation to property in the Isle of Man in the sense of deciding the status of a thing and purporting to bind the world: see Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law, 3rd ed (2010) (ed Greenberg), p 1249.

The judgments in the Rubin and New Cap appeals were based on avoidance legislation which, with some differences of substance, performs the same function as the equivalent provisions in the Insolvency Act 1986 and its predecessors. But Ward LJ in Rubin accepted that the judgment was in personam and the Rubin respondents have not sought to argue that it was not an in personam judgment. What they say is that, even if it is in personam, it is within a sui generis category of insolvency orders or judgments subject to special rules.

There can be no doubt that the avoidance orders in the present appeals are in personam. In In re Paramount Airways Ltd [1993] Ch. 223, 238, Nicholls LJ said that the remedies under section 238 of the Insolvency Act 1986, (transactions at an undervalue) were “primarily of an in personam character,” and that accords with the nature of the orders in these appeals. The form of judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court in the Rubin case was that “plaintiffs have judgment … against the defendants …” in the sums awarded, and the orders of the New South Wales Supreme Court in the New Cap case included orders that “the defendants … pay to the first plaintiff” the sums due under section 588FF(1) of the Australian Corporations Act.

Since the judgments are in personam the principles in the Dicey Rule are applicable unless the court holds that there is, or should be, a separate rule for judgments in personam in insolvency proceedings, at any rate where those judgments are not designed to establish the existence of rights, but are central to the purpose of the insolvency proceedings or part of the mechanism of collective execution.

Prior to Cambridge Gas and the present cases, there had been no suggestion that there might be a different rule for judgments in personam in insolvency proceedings and other proceedings. There are no cases in England which are helpful. The normal rules for enforcement of foreign judgments were applied to a claim by a liquidator for moneys due to the company (Gavin Gibson & Co Ltd v Gibson [1913] 3 KB 379) and to a claim on a debt ascertained in bankruptcy under German law (Berliner Industriebank Aktiengesellschaft v Jost [1971] 2 QB 463). A judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court in Chapter 11 proceedings for repayment of a preferential transfer was enforced in Ontario on the basis of the judgment debtor’s submission to the New York court, without any suggestion that the normal rules did not apply: Gourmet Resources International Inc v Paramount Capital Corpn (1991) 3 OR (3d) 286, [1993] ILPr 583, app dismissed (1993) 14 OR (3d) 319 (Ont CA).

The principles in the Dicey Rule have never received the express approval of the House of Lords or the UK Supreme Court and the leading decisions remain Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433 and the older Court of Appeal authorities which it re-states or re-interprets. But there can be no doubt that the references by the House of Lords in the context of foreign judgments to the foreign court of “competent jurisdiction” are implicit references to the common law rule: eg In re Henderson, Nouvion v Freeman (1890) 15 App Cas 1, 8; Owens Bank Ltd v Bracco [1992] 2 AC 443, 484.

The Rubin respondents question whether the rules remain sound in the modern world. It is true that the common law rule was rejected in Canada, at first in the context of the inter-provincial recognition of judgments. The Supreme Court of Canada held that the English rules developed in the 19th century for the recognition and enforcement of judgments of foreign countries could not be transposed to the enforcement of judgments from sister provinces in a single country with a common market and a single citizenship. Instead a judgment given against a person outside the jurisdiction should be recognised and enforced if the subject matter of the action had a real and substantial connection with the province in which the judgment was given: Morguard Investments Ltd v De Savoye [1990] 3 SCR 1077, para 45. This approach was applied, by a majority, to foreign country judgments in Beals v Saldanha [2003] 3 SCR 416 (applied to the recognition of an English order convening meetings in a scheme of arrangement in Re Cavell Insurance Co (2006) 269 DLR (4th) 679 (Ont CA)).

There is no support in England for such an approach except in the field of family law. In Indyka v Indyka [1969] 1 AC 33 it was held that a foreign decree of divorce would be recognised at common law if there was a “real and substantial connection” between the petitioner (or the respondent) and the country where the divorce was obtained. This rule (now superseded by the Family Law Act 1986) was in part devised to avoid “limping marriages”, ie cases where the parties were regarded as divorced in one country but regarded as married in another country. It has never been adopted outside the family law sphere in the context of foreign judgments.

The Supreme Court of Ireland in In re Flightlease (Ireland) Ltd [2012] IESC 12 declined to follow Cambridge Gas (and also the decision of the Court of Appeal in Rubin) and also held that the Dicey Rule should not be rejected in favour of a real and substantial connection test. In Flightlease the airline Swissair was in a form of debt restructuring proceeding in Switzerland, where it was incorporated. Flightlease is an Irish company in the same group as Swissair. An application was before the Swiss courts under the Swiss federal statute on debt enforcement and bankruptcy seeking the return of money paid by Swissair to Flightlease. The proceedings had reached the stage of judgment, but the liquidators of Flightlease were concerned to know whether a Swiss judgment would be enforceable in Ireland so that they could decide whether to appear in the Swiss proceedings.

The Irish Supreme Court held that the judgment would not be enforceable if Flightlease did not appear in the Swiss proceedings for these reasons: (1) the effect of the Swiss order would be to establish a liability on Flightlease to repay moneys and would therefore result in a judgment in personam; (2) it would be preferable for any change in the rules relating to the enforcement of foreign judgments to take place in the context of international consensus by way of treaty or convention given effect by legislation. In particular, the Irish Supreme Court said that it would not adopt the approach in Cambridge Gas because it had resulted from legislative changes in the United Kingdom (this appears to have been based on a misapprehension), and should not be adopted in Ireland in the absence of consensus among common law jurisdictions.

But there is no suggestion on this appeal that the principles embodied in the Dicey Rule should be abandoned. Instead the Rubin respondents suggest that the principles should not apply to foreign insolvency orders.

The respondents accept that the Dicey Rule applies to claims which may be of considerable significance by an officeholder in a foreign insolvency, such as a claim for breach of contract, or a tort claim, or a claim to recover debts. It is clear that such claims may affect the size of the insolvent estate just as much, and often more, than avoidance claims. Like claims to recover money due to the insolvent estate such as restitutionary claims not involving avoidance, avoidance claims may establish a liability to pay or repay money to the bankrupt estate (as in the present cases). There is no difference of principle.

The question, therefore, is one of policy. Should there be a more liberal rule for avoidance judgments in the interests of the universality of bankruptcy and similar procedures? In my judgment the answer is in the negative for the following reasons.

First, although I accept that it is possible to distinguish between avoidance claims and normal claims, for example in contract or tort, it is difficult to see in the present context a difference of principle between a foreign judgment against a debtor on a substantial debt due to a company in liquidation and a foreign judgment against a creditor for repayment of a preferential payment. The respondents suggest that a person who sells goods to a foreign company accepts the risk of the insolvency legislation of the place of incorporation. Quite apart from the fact that the suggestion is wholly unrealistic, why should the seller/creditor be in a worse position than a buyer/debtor?

The second reason is that if there is to be a different rule for foreign judgments in such proceedings as avoidance proceedings, the court will have to ascertain (or, more accurately, develop) two jurisdictional rules. There are two aspects of jurisdiction which would have to be satisfied if a foreign insolvency judgment or order is to be outside the scope of the Dicey Rule: the first is the requisite nexus between the insolvency and the foreign court, and the second is the requisite nexus between the judgment debtor and the foreign court.

In Cambridge Gas Navigator was an Isle of Man company, and the jurisdiction of the United States Bankruptcy Court depends on whether the “debtor” resides or has a domicile or place of business, or property, in the United States. The shares in Navigator owned by Cambridge Gas (a Cayman Islands company) were, on ordinary principles of the conflict of laws, situated in the Isle of Man, and the shareholder relationship between Navigator and Cambridge Gas was governed by Manx law. The Privy Council, as noted above, did not articulate any rule for the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court over Navigator (although it had plainly submitted to its jurisdiction) or over Cambridge Gas (which, the Manx courts had held and the Privy Council accepted, had not submitted) or over Cambridge Gas’ Manx assets.

Nor did the Court of Appeal in Rubin articulate the reasons why the English court recognised the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court over TCT, or over the appellants. The receivers appear to have proceeded originally on the basis that the United States Bankruptcy Court had jurisdiction under United States bankruptcy law because of TCT’s residence and principal place of business in New York (petition, 5 December 2005), but the US Bankruptcy Court, in deciding to appoint the receivers as foreign representatives also noted that TCT’s business operations were conducted primarily in the United States, the majority of its creditors, substantially all of its assets, and its centre of main interests, were all in the United States. The basis of jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court under United States law over the individual defendants in Rubin was that they were subject both to the general jurisdiction of the court (ie connection of the defendant with the jurisdiction) and also to the specific jurisdiction of the court (ie connection of the cause of action with the jurisdiction) because they specifically sought out the United States as a place to do business and specifically sought out United States merchants and consumers with whom to do business. Accordingly, the exercise of jurisdiction satisfied the due process requirements of the Fifth Amendment.

The basis of jurisdiction in New Cap over New Cap itself was of course that it was incorporated in Australia. The basis of jurisdiction over the Syndicate under New South Wales law was that the cause of action against the Syndicate arose in New South Wales.

The respondents do not put forward any principled suggestion for rules which will deal with the two aspects of jurisdiction. They accept, as regards the jurisdictional link between the foreign country and the insolvent estate, that English law has traditionally recognised insolvency proceedings taking place in an individual bankrupt’s place of domicile, or, in the case of corporations, the place of incorporation, but (because the connection which the trustees of the TCT, or the TCT itself, had with the United States was that the trust’s main business was there) they rely on what Lord Hoffmann said in HIH [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 31:

“I have spoken in a rather old-fashioned way of the company’s domicile because that is the term used in the old cases, but I do not claim it is necessarily the best one. Usually it means the place where the company is incorporated but that may be some offshore island with which the company's business has no real connection. The Council Regulation on insolvency proceedings (Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 of 29 May 2000) uses the concept of the ‘centre of a debtor's main interests’ as a test, with a presumption that it is the place where the registered office is situated: see article 3.1. That may be more appropriate.”

They propose that each of these issues be resolved, not by a black letter rule like the common law rule for enforcement of judgments, but instead by an appeal to what was said in oral argument to be the discretion of the English court to assist the foreign court.

On the second aspect, the jurisdictional link between the foreign country and the judgment debtor, they accept that it is necessary for there to be an appropriate connection between the foreign insolvency proceeding and the insolvency order in respect of which recognition and enforcement is sought. They propose that, in the exercise of the discretion, the court should adopt an approach similar to that taken by the English court in deciding whether to apply provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986, such as section 238 (transactions at an undervalue), to persons abroad, relying on In re Paramount Airways Ltd [1993] Ch 223.

That case decided that there is no implied territorial limitation to the exercise of jurisdiction over “any person.” The Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the section applied only to British subjects and to persons present in England at the time of the impugned transaction. In particular the physical absence or presence of the party at the time of the transaction bore no necessary relationship to the appropriateness of the remedy. Nor was the test of “sufficient connection” with England satisfactory because it would hardly be distinguishable from the ambit of the sections being unlimited territorially: p 237. Instead, the approach was to be found in the discretion of the court, first to grant permission to serve the proceedings out of the jurisdiction, and secondly, to make an order under the section. On both aspects the court would take into account whether the defendant was sufficiently connected with England for it to be just and proper to make the order against him despite the foreign element.

The Rubin respondents say that In re Paramount Airways Ltd is instructive because, if the facts of the present case were reversed such that TCT had carried on the scheme in England and had been placed into insolvency proceedings here and the appellants were resident in New York, then it can be expected that the English court would have considered that England was the correct forum in which to bring section 238 proceedings to recover payments made to the appellants and would have given permission to serve out of the jurisdiction accordingly. They go on to say that it is implicit in this that the English court would have expected the New York court then to recognise and enforce any judgment of the English court even if the appellants had remained in New York and had not contested the proceedings; and that by the same token that the court seeks and expects the recognition and enforcement abroad of its own insolvency orders, the court should recognise and enforce in England insolvency orders made in insolvency proceedings in other jurisdictions.

There is no basis for this line of reasoning. There is no necessary connection between the exercise of jurisdiction by the English court and its recognition of the jurisdiction of foreign courts, or its expectation of the recognition of its judgments abroad. It has frequently been said that the jurisdiction exercised under what used to be RSC Ord 11, r. 1 (and is now CPR Practice Direction 6B, para 3.1) is an exorbitant one, in that it was a wider jurisdiction than was recognised in English law as being possessed by courts of foreign countries in the absence of a treaty providing for recognition: see The Siskina (Owners of cargo lately laden on board) v Distos Cia Naviera SA [1979] AC 210, 254 per Lord Diplock; Amin Rasheed Shipping Corpn v Kuwait Insurance Co [1984] AC 50, 65 per Lord Diplock; Spiliada Maritime Corpn v Cansulex Ltd [1987] AC 460, 481 per Lord Goff of Chieveley.

Outside the sphere of matrimonial proceedings (see Travers v Holley [1953] P 246, disapproved on this aspect in Indyka v Indyka [1969] 1 AC 33) reciprocity has not played a part in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments at common law. The English court does not concede jurisdiction in personam to a foreign court merely because the English court would, in corresponding circumstances, have power to order service out of the jurisdiction: In re Trepca Mines Ltd [1960] 1 WLR 1273.

In my judgment, the dicta in Cambridge Gas and HIH do not justify the result which the Court of Appeal reached. This would not be an incremental development of existing principles, but a radical departure from substantially settled law. There is a reason for the limited scope of the Dicey Rule and that is that there is no expectation of reciprocity on the part of foreign countries. Typically today the introduction of new rules for enforcement of judgments depends on a degree of reciprocity. The EC Insolvency Regulation and the Model Law were the product of lengthy negotiation and consultation.

A change in the settled law of the recognition and enforcement of judgments, and in particular the formulation of a rule for the identification of those courts which are to be regarded as courts of competent jurisdiction (such as the country where the insolvent entity has its centre of interests and the country with which the judgment debtor has a sufficient or substantial connection), has all the hallmarks of legislation, and is a matter for the legislature and not for judicial innovation. The law relating to the enforcement of foreign judgments and the law relating to international insolvency are not areas of law which have in recent times been left to be developed by judge-made law. As Lord Bridge of Harwich put it in relation to a proposed change in the common law rule relating to fraud as a defence to the enforcement of a foreign judgment, “if the law is now in need of reform, it is for the legislature, not the judiciary, to effect it”: Owens Bank Ltd v Bracco [1992] 2 AC 443, 489.

Furthermore, the introduction of judge-made law extending the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments would be only to the detriment of United Kingdom businesses without any corresponding benefit. I accept the appellants’ point that if recognition and enforcement were simply left to the discretion of the court, based on a factor like “sufficient connection,” a person in England who might have connections with a foreign territory which were only arguably “sufficient” would have to actively defend foreign proceedings which could result in an in personam judgment against him, only because the proceedings are incidental to bankruptcy proceedings in the courts of that territory. Although I say nothing about the facts of the Madoff case, it might suggest that foreigners who have bona fide dealings with the United States might have to face the dilemma of the expense of defending enormous claims in the United States or not defending them and being at risk of having a default judgment enforced abroad.

Nor is there likely to be any serious injustice if this court declines to sanction a departure from the traditional rule. It would not be appropriate to express a view on whether the officeholders in the present cases would have, or would have had, a direct remedy in England, because there might be, or might have been, issues as to the governing law, or issues as to time-limits or as to good faith. Subject to those reservations, several of the ways in which the claims were put (especially those parts of the judgment which were not the subject of these proceedings) in the United States proceedings in Rubin could have founded proceedings by trustees in England for the benefit of the creditors (as beneficiaries of the express trust). In addition there are several other avenues available to officeholders. Avoidance claims by a liquidator of an Australian company may be the subject of a request by the Australian court pursuant to section 426(4) of the Insolvency Act 1986, applying Australian law under section 426(5). In appropriate cases, article 23 of the Model Law will allow avoidance claims to be made by foreign representatives under the Insolvency Act 1986. In the cases where the insolvent estate has its centre of main interests in the European Union, judgments will be enforceable under Article 25 of the EC Insolvency Regulation.

It follows that, in my judgment, Cambridge Gas was wrongly decided. The Privy Council accepted (in view of the conclusion that there had been no submission to the jurisdiction of the court in New York) that Cambridge Gas was not subject to the personal jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court. The property in question, namely the shares in Navigator, was situate in the Isle of Man, and therefore also not subject to the in rem jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court. There was therefore no basis for the recognition of the order of the US Bankruptcy Court in the Isle of Man.

In the Rubin appeal it was argued by the respondents that the judgment should also be enforced through the CBIR, implementing the UNCITRAL Model Law.

The order made by the deputy judge recognised the Chapter 11 proceeding “including the Adversary Proceedings,” because “bringing adversary proceedings against debtors of the bankrupt is clearly part of collecting the bankrupt’s assets with a view to distributing them to creditors” and “the adversary proceedings are part and parcel of the Chapter 11 insolvency proceedings”: [2010] 1 All ER (Comm) 81, paras 46, 47. The Court of Appeal was of the same view: [2011] Ch 133, para 61(2)-(3). The appellants no longer maintain that the adversary proceedings should not be recognised under the Model Law.

The issue which still arises in relation to the Model Law as implemented by the CBIR is whether the court has power to grant relief recognising and enforcing the relevant parts of the judgment.

Article 21 provides that:

“1.

Upon recognition of a foreign proceeding, whether main or non-main, where necessary to protect the assets of the debtor or the interests of the creditors, the court may, at the request of the foreign representative, grant any appropriate relief, including –

(a)

staying the commencement or continuation of individual actions or individual proceedings concerning the debtor's assets, rights, obligations or liabilities, to the extent they have not been stayed under paragraph l(a) of article 20;

(b)

staying execution against the debtor's assets to the extent it has not been stayed under paragraph l(b) of article 20;

(c)

suspending the right to transfer, encumber or otherwise dispose of any assets of the debtor to the extent this right has not been suspended under paragraph 1(c) of article 20;

(d)

providing for the examination of witnesses, the taking of evidence or the delivery of information concerning the debtor's assets, affairs, rights, obligations or liabilities;

(e)

entrusting the administration or realisation of all or part of the debtor's assets located in Great Britain to the foreign representative or another person designated by the court;

(f)

extending relief granted under paragraph 1 of article 19; and

(g)

granting any additional relief that may be available to a British insolvency officeholder under the law of Great Britain, including any relief provided under paragraph 43 of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986.”

The reference to relief under paragragh 43 of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986 is a reference to a moratorium on claims in an administration.

The Guide to Enactment states, at paras 154, 156:

“[154] The types of relief listed in article 21, paragraph 1, are typical or most frequent in insolvency proceedings; however, the list is not exhaustive and the court is not restricted unnecessarily in its ability to grant any type of relief that is available under the law of the enacting state and needed in the circumstances of the case.

…

[156] It is in the nature of discretionary relief that the court may tailor it to the case at hand. This idea is reinforced by article 22, paragraph 2, according to which the court may subject the relief granted to conditions that it considers appropriate.”

Article 25 provides (under the heading “Co-operation and direct communication between a court of Great Britain and foreign courts or foreign representatives”) that:

“1.

… the court may co-operate to the maximum extent possible with foreign courts or foreign representatives, either directly or through a British insolvency officeholder.

2.

The court is entitled to communicate directly with, or to request information or assistance directly from, foreign courts or foreign representatives.”

Article 27 provides that the co-operation referred to in article 25 may be implemented “by any appropriate means”, including

“(a)

appointment of a person to act at the direction of the court;

(b)

communication of information by any means considered appropriate by the court;

(c)

coordination of the administration and supervision of the debtor's assets and affairs;

(d)

approval or implementation by courts of agreements concerning the coordination of proceedings;

(e)

coordination of concurrent proceedings regarding the same debtor.”

The respondents say that (a) the power under article 21 is to grant any type of relief that is available under the law of the relevant state, and that the fact that recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments is not specifically mentioned in article 21 as one of the forms of relief available, does not mean that such relief cannot be granted; (b) the recognition and enforcement of the judgments of a foreign court is the paradigm means of co-operation with that court; and (c) the examples of co-operation in article 27 are merely examples and are not exhaustive.

But the CBIR (and the Model Law) say nothing about the enforcement of foreign judgments against third parties. As Lord Mance pointed out in argument, recognition and enforcement are fundamental in international cases. Recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (but not in insolvency matters) have been the subject of intense international negotiations at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, which ultimately failed because of inability to agree on recognised international bases of jurisdiction.

It would be surprising if the Model Law was intended to deal with judgments in insolvency matters by implication. Articles 21, 25 and 27 are concerned with procedural matters. No doubt they should be given a purposive interpretation and should be widely construed in the light of the objects of the Model Law, but there is nothing to suggest that they apply to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments against third parties.

The respondents rely on United States decisions but the only case involving enforcement of a foreign judgment in fact supports the appellants’ argument. The Model Law has been implemented into United States law through Chapter 15 of Title 11 of the United States Code, which has in sections 1521, 1525 and 1527 provisions which are, with modifications not relevant for present purposes, equivalent to articles 21, 25 and 27 of the CBIR. In Re Metcalfe & Mansfield Alternative Investments 421 BR 685 (Bankr SDNY 2010) the US Bankruptcy Court ordered that orders made by a Canadian court in relation to a plan of compromise and arrangement under the (Canadian) Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act 1985 be enforced. That decision does not assist the respondents because the US Bankruptcy Court applied the normal rules in non-bankruptcy cases for enforcement of foreign judgments in the United States: pp 698-700. In my judgment the Model Law is not designed to provide for the reciprocal enforcement of judgments.

In view of my conclusion in the next section (section VIII) that the Syndicate submitted to the jurisdiction of the Australian court, the issues on section 426(4) and (5) of the Insolvency Act 1986, and their relationship with section 6 of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 do not arise, but since the matter was fully argued I will express a view on the applicability of section 426(4) to a case such as this.

Section 426(4)-(5) of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides:

“(4)

The courts having jurisdiction in relation to insolvency law in any part of the United Kingdom shall assist the courts having the corresponding jurisdiction in any other part of the United Kingdom or any relevant country or territory.

(5)

For the purposes of subsection (4) a request made to a court in any part of the United Kingdom by a court in any other part of the United Kingdom, or in a relevant country or territory is authority for the court to which the request is made to apply, in relation to any matter specified in the request, the insolvency law which is applicable by either court in relation to comparable matters falling within its jurisdiction.

In exercising its discretion under this subsection, a court shall have regard in particular to the rules of private international law.”

The reference to the application of rules of private international law in section 426(5) is difficult and obscure: see Dicey, 15th ed, para 30-119; my discussion in In re Television Trade Rentals [2002] EWHC 211 (Ch), [2002] BCC 807, para 17, and the cases there cited; and Al-Sabah v Grupo Torras SA [2005] UKPC 1, [2005] 2 AC 333, para 47. But nothing turns on it on these appeals.

The question is whether section 426(4) of the 1986 Act provides a procedure by which a judgment of a court having jurisdiction in relation to insolvency law in a “relevant country or territory” may be enforced in the United Kingdom. As I have said, Australia is a relevant country.

A further question arises if section 426(4) applies to the enforcement of foreign judgments and that is whether section 426 is ousted by section 6 of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, which provides:

“No proceedings for the recovery of a sum payable under a foreign judgment, being a judgment to which this Part of the Act applies, other than proceedings by way of registration of the judgment, shall be entertained by any court in the United Kingdom.”

Both Lewison J and the Court of Appeal [2012] 2 WLR 1095 held that section 426(4) was available as a tool for the enforcement of the judgment.

Section 426(4) has been given a broad interpretation: see Hughes v Hannover Rückversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft [1997] 1 BCLC 497 (CA); England v Smith [2001] Ch 419 (CA); HIH [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852. It has been held that the fact that a letter of request has been made is a weighty factor, and public policy and comity favour the giving of assistance: Hughes v Hannover, at pp 517-518; England v Smith, at p 433. Thus in England v Smith the Australian court overseeing the liquidation of the Bond Corporation made an order for the examination of a London partner in Arthur Andersen. It issued a letter of request asking the English court to assist it by making its own order for the examination. The Court of Appeal decided that the order should be made.

But, despite the respondents’ argument to the contrary, England v Smith was not a case of the enforcement of the Australian order, but rather the making of the court’s own order in aid of the Australian liquidation. In my judgment, subsections 426(4) and (5) of the 1986 Act are not concerned with enforcement of judgments. Section 426(1)-(2), by contrast, deals with enforcement of orders in one part of the United Kingdom in another part, and refer expressly to the enforcement of such orders (“shall be enforced” in section 426(1)). Section 426(4) deals with assistance not only for foreign designated countries such as Australia but also to intra-United Kingdom assistance. If section 426(4) applied to intra-United Kingdom enforcement of orders, then section 426(1) would be largely redundant, going beyond what the Court of Appeal [2012] 2 WLR 1095, para 57 described as “a degree of overlap.”

Sections 426(1) and (4) have their origin in sections 121 and 123 of the Bankruptcy Act 1914. Section 121 of the 1914 Act provided that orders of bankruptcy courts in one part of the United Kingdom were to be enforced in other parts. Section 122 provided that the courts exercising bankruptcy and insolvency jurisdiction in the United Kingdom and “every British court elsewhere” were to act in aid of, and be auxiliary to, each other; and, upon a request by the non-English court, could exercise the jurisdiction of either court.

The Insolvency Law and Practice Report of the Review Committee (1982) (Cmnd 8558) (the “Cork Report”) said (paras 1909-1913) that section 122 was the “vital section in this context”, and recommended that the section should be extended to winding up. But, despite the respondents’ arguments, I do not discern any recommendation which would suggest that section 426(4) applies to the enforcement of foreign judgments.

Consequently the applicability of section 6 of the 1933 Act does not arise for decision, except in a context which makes little practical difference, and to which I will revert.

If the Dicey Rule applies the judgments in issue will be enforceable in England if the judgment debtors submitted to the jurisdiction of the foreign court.

The Australian court granted leave to serve these proceedings out of the jurisdiction on the Syndicate: section IV, above. The Syndicate did not enter an appearance, but its solicitors commented in writing on evidence presented to the Australian court about New Cap’s insolvency and their comments were placed before the Australian judge.

More relevant is the fact that from August 1999 the Syndicate submitted proofs of debt (in relation to unsettled claims and outstanding premiums for the 1997, 1998, and 1999 years of account, and not to the reinsurance contracts which are the subject of these proceedings) and attended and participated in creditors’ meetings. In particular at an adjourned meeting of creditors on 16 September 2009 the Syndicate had given a proxy for that meeting to the chairman, and submitted a proof of debt and proxy form for that meeting. The Syndicate voted at a meeting of creditors in favour of a scheme of arrangement. The liquidator has admitted claims by the Syndicate for the sterling equivalent of more than £650,000, although the liquidator is retaining the dividend in partial settlement of the costs incurred in these proceedings.

The general rule in the ordinary case in England is that the party alleged to have submitted to the jurisdiction of the English court must have “taken some step which is only necessary or only useful if” an objection to jurisdiction “has been actually waived, or if the objection has never been entertained at all”: Williams & Glyn’s Bank plc v Astro Dinamico Compania Naviera SA [1984] 1 WLR 438, 444 (HL) approving Rein v Stein (1892) 66 LT 469, 471 (Cave J).

The same general rule has been adopted to determine whether there has been a submission to the jurisdiction of a foreign court for the purposes of the rule that a foreign judgment will be enforced on the basis that the judgment debtor has submitted to the jurisdiction of the foreign court: Adams v Cape Industries [1990] Ch 433, 459 (Scott J); Akai Pty Ltd v People’s Insurance Co Ltd [1998] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 90, 96-97 (Thomas J); see also Desert Sun Loan Corpn v Hill [1996] 2 All ER 847, 856 (CA); Akande v Balfour Beatty Construction Ltd [1998] ILPr 110; Starlight International Inc v Bruce [2002] EWHC 374 (Ch), [2002] ILPr 617, para 14 (cases of foreign judgments); Industrial Maritime Carriers (Bahamas) Inc v Sinoca International Inc (The Eastern Trader) [1996] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 585, 601 (a case involving the question whether the party seeking an anti-suit injunction in support of an English arbitration clause had waived the agreement by submitting to the jurisdiction of the foreign court).

The characterisation of whether there has been a submission for the purposes of the enforcement of foreign judgments in England depends on English law. The court will not simply consider whether the steps taken abroad would have amounted to a submission in English proceedings. The international context requires a broader approach. Nor does it follow from the fact that the foreign court would have regarded steps taken in the foreign proceedings as a submission that the English court will so regard them. Conversely, it does not necessarily follow that because the foreign court would not regard the steps as a submission that they will not be so regarded by the English court as a submission for the purposes of the enforcement of a judgment of the foreign court. The question whether there has been a submission is to be inferred from all the facts.

It is in that context that Scott J said at first instance in Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] 1 Ch 433, 461 (a case in which the submission issue was not before the Court of Appeal): “If the steps would not have been regarded by the domestic law of the foreign court as a submission to the jurisdiction, they ought not … to be so regarded here, notwithstanding that if they had been steps taken in an English court they might have constituted a submission. The implication of procedural steps taken in foreign proceedings must … be assessed in the context of the foreign proceedings.”

I agree with the way it was put by Thomas J in Akai Pty Ltd v People’s Insurance Company Ltd [1998] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 90, 97:

“The court must consider the matter objectively; it must have regard to the general framework of its own procedural rules, but also to the domestic law of the court where the steps were taken. This is because the significance of those steps can only be understood by reference to that law. If a step taken by a person in a foreign jurisdiction, such as making a counterclaim, might well be regarded by English law as amounting to a submission to the jurisdiction, but would not be regarded by that foreign court as a submission to its jurisdiction, an English court will take into account the position under foreign law.”

The Syndicate did not take any steps in the avoidance proceedings as such which would be regarded either by the Australian court or by the English court as a submission. Were the steps taken by the Syndicate in the liquidation a submission for the purposes of the rules relating to foreign judgments?

In English law there is no doubt that orders may be made against a foreign creditor who proves in an English liquidation or bankruptcy on the footing that by proving the foreign creditor submits to the jurisdiction of the English court. In Ex p Robertson, In re Morton (1875) LR 20 Eq 733 trustees were appointed over the property of bankrupt potato merchants in a liquidation by arrangement. A Scots merchant received payment of £120 after the liquidation petition was presented, and proved for a balance of £247 and received a dividend of what is now 20p in the pound. The trustees served a notice of motion, seeking repayment of the £120 paid out of the insolvent estate, out of the jurisdiction. The respondent objected to the jurisdiction of the English court on the ground that he was a domiciled Scotsman. On appeal from the county court, Sir James Bacon CJ held that the court had jurisdiction. He said, at pp 737-738:

“… what is the consequence of creditors coming in under a liquidation or bankruptcy? They come in under what is as much a compact as if each of them had signed and sealed and sworn to the terms of it - that the bankrupt's estate shall be duly administered among the creditors. That being so, the administration of the estate is cast upon the court, and the court has jurisdiction to decide all questions of whatever kind, whether of law, fact, or whatever else the court may think necessary in order to effect complete distribution of the bankrupt's estate. … [C]an there be any doubt that the Appellant in this case has agreed that, as far as he is concerned, the law of bankruptcy shall take effect as to him, and under this jurisdiction, to which he is not only subjected, but under which he has become an active party, and of which he has taken the benefit .. [The Appellant] is as much bound to perform the conditions of the compact, and to submit to the jurisdiction of the court, as if he had never been out of the limits of England.”

The Syndicate objected to the jurisdiction of the Australian court. Barrett J in his judgment of 14 July 2009 accepted that it had made it clear that it was not submitting to its jurisdiction, and he also accepted that as a result the judgment of the Australian court would not be enforceable in England. His judgment is concerned exclusively with the preference claims, and he did not deal with the question of submission by reference to the Syndicate’s participation in the liquidation by way of proof and receipt of dividends. He decided that the court had jurisdiction because the New South Wales rules justified service out of the jurisdiction on the basis that the cause of action arose in New South Wales.

I would therefore accept the liquidators’ submission that, having chosen to submit to New Cap's Australian insolvency proceeding, the Syndicate should be taken to have submitted to the jurisdiction of the Australian court responsible for the supervision of that proceeding. It should not be allowed to benefit from the insolvency proceeding without the burden of complying with the orders made in that proceeding.

The position is different in the Rubin appeal. It would certainly have been arguable that Eurofinance SA had submitted to the jurisdiction of the United States District Court, for these reasons: first, it was Eurofinance SA which applied for the appointment by the High Court of Mr Rubin and Mr Lan as receivers of TCT specifically for the purpose of causing TCT then to obtain protection under Chapter 11; second, it was Eurofinance SA which represented to the English court that officeholders appointed by the United States court would be able to pursue claims against third parties; third, the judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court states that the court had personal jurisdiction over Eurofinance SA not only because it did business in the United States but also (as I have mentioned above) because it had filed a notice of appearance in the Chapter 11 proceedings (Order 22 of July 2008, paras 42-43).

But the Rubin appellants did not appear in the adversary proceedings, and it was not argued in these proceedings that Eurofinance SA (or Mr Adrian Roman, who caused Eurofinance SA to make the application) had submitted to the jurisdiction of the US Bankruptcy Court in any other way and it is not necessary therefore to explore the matter further.

In view of my conclusion that the Australian judgment in New Cap is enforceable by reason of the Syndicate’s submission, a purely technical point arises on the method of enforcement. The point is whether the enforcement is to be under the 1933 Act or at common law. If insolvency proceedings are excluded from the 1933 Act, then enforcement would be at common law. If they are not excluded, then (as I have said) section 6 has the effect of excluding an action at common law on the judgment and making registration under the 1933 Act the only method of enforcement of judgments within Part I of the Act.

Section 11(2) of the 1933 Act provides that the expression “action in personam” shall not be deemed to include (inter alia) proceedings in connection with bankruptcy and winding up of companies. But the effect of section 4(2)(c) is that in the case of a judgment given in an action other than an action in personam or an action in rem, the foreign court shall be deemed to have jurisdiction if its jurisdiction is recognised by the English court, ie at common law. Accordingly, the question whether insolvency proceedings are wholly excluded from the operation of the 1933 Act still arises. There is no other provision in the 1933 Act which throws any light on the point.

The main object of the 1933 Act was to facilitate the enforcement of commercial judgments abroad by making reciprocity easier. The only reference to insolvency proceedings in the Report of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Committee (1932) (Cmnd 4213), (the Greer Report), which recommended the legislation, is the statement (para 4): “It is not necessary for our present purposes to consider the effect in England of foreign judgments in bankruptcy proceedings…”. The Report annexed draft Conventions which had been drawn up in consultation with experts from Belgium, France and Germany. The draft Conventions with Belgium (article 4(3), (4)) and Germany (article 4(4)) provided that the jurisdictional rules in the Convention did not apply to judgments in bankruptcy proceedings or proceedings relating to the winding up of companies or other bodies corporate, but that the jurisdiction of the original court would be recognised where such recognition was in accordance with the rules of private international law observed by the court applied to. That provision paralleled what became sections 4(2)(c) and 11(2) of the 1933 Act. The draft Convention with France did not apply to judgments in bankruptcy proceedings etc (article 2(3)), but provided that nothing was deemed to preclude the recognition and enforcement of judgments to which the Convention did not apply: article 2(4).

The Conventions concluded with countries to which the 1933 Act applied adopted similar techniques. It is unnecessary to set them out in detail. But there is no reason to suppose that bankruptcy proceedings were not regarded as being “civil and commercial matters.” Thus the 1961 Convention with the Federal Republic of Germany of 1961 (the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Germany) Order) (SI 1961/1199) provided in article I(6) that the expression “judgments in civil and commercial matters” did not include judgments for fines or penalties, and had a separate provision in article II(2) that the Convention did not apply to judgments in bankruptcy proceedings or proceedings relating to the winding up of companies or other bodies corporate (although, in accordance with the usual technique, it did not rule out recognition and enforcement: Art II(3)). Other Conventions simply excluded bankruptcy proceedings from the specific jurisdictional provisions of the Convention, like the draft Conventions annexed to the Greer Report: article 4(5) of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Austria) Order 1962 (SI 1962/1339), article 4(3) of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Norway) Order 1962 (SI 1962/636), and article IV(3) of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Italy) Order 1963 (SI 1973/1894).

The Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments (Australia) Order 1994 (SI 1994/1901) extended the 1933 Act to Australia, implementing the UK-Australia Agreement for the reciprocal enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. The Agreement is expressed in article I(c)(i) to apply to judgments in civil and commercial matters. The Order applies Part I of the Act to judgments in respect of a “civil or commercial matter” (article 4(a)).

There is no reason to conclude that the phrase “civil and commercial matters” does not include insolvency proceedings, and the history of the 1933 Act and the Conventions shows that it does. The fact that insolvency was expressly excluded from the operation of the Brussels Convention, the original and revised Lugano Conventions and the Brussels I Regulation in fact suggests that otherwise they would have been within their scope. The respondents relied on a passage in the ruling of the European Court of Justice in Gourdain v Nadler (Case 133/78) [1979] ECR 733, paras 3-4, as suggesting that the exclusion of bankruptcy in article 1 of the Brussels Convention was an example of a matter excluded from the concept of civil and commercial matters. But it is clear from the context (and from the opinion of Advocate General Reischl) that the court was simply saying that because the expression “civil and commercial matters” in Article 1 had to be given an autonomous meaning, so also was the case with the expression “bankruptcy”. That the exclusion of bankruptcy proceedings does not affect their character as civil or commercial matters is confirmed by the recent ruling in F-Tex SIA v Lietuvos-Anglijos UAB-Jadecloud-Vilma (Case C-213/10) 19 April 2012, where the court said that the Brussels I Regulation was “intended to apply to all civil and commercial matters apart from certain well-defined matters” and as a result actions directly deriving from insolvency proceedings and closely connected with them were excluded: para 29.

It follows that the 1933 Act applies to the Australian judgment and that enforcement should be by way of registration under the 1933 Act.

I would therefore allow the appeal in Rubin, but dismiss the appeal in New Cap on the ground that the Syndicate submitted to the jurisdiction of the Australian court.

I agree with Lord Collins’ reasoning and conclusions in his judgment on these appeals, essentially for the reasons he gives, though without subscribing to his incidental observation (para 132) that the Privy Council decision in Cambridge Gas Transportation Corpn v Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Navigator Holdings plc [2006] UKPC 26, [2007] 1 AC 508 was necessarily wrongly decided. This was not argued before the Supreme Court, and I would wish to reserve my opinion upon it. Cambridge Gas is, on any view, distinguishable.

The common law question central to these appeals is whether the Supreme Court should endorse or introduce a special rule of recognition and enforcement, one falling outside the scope of the Dicey Rule which Lord Collins has identified (Rule 36 in the 14th and Rule 43 in the 15th edition) and applicable to judgments in foreign insolvency proceedings setting aside voidable pre-insolvency transactions. For the principal reasons which Lord Collins gives in paras 95 to 131, I agree that we should not do so.

Since much weight was placed by the respondents and the Court of Appeal upon the Board’s reasoning and decision in Cambridge Gas, I add some observations to indicate why, as the present appellants submitted, it concerned circumstances and proceeded upon factual assumptions and a legal analysis which have no parallel in the present case.

Cambridge Gas has attracted both Irish judicial dissent and English academic criticism, to which Lord Collins refers in paras 53 and 111-112. Giving the judgment of the Board in Pattni v Ali [2006] UKPC 51, [2007] 2 AC 85, I said that the purpose of the bankruptcy order with which the Board was concerned in Cambridge Gas “was simply to establish a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor [Navigator] by creditors whose rights were admitted or established” (para 23).

This analysis, admittedly, involved treating the vesting in creditors of shares in Navigator as no different in substance from the vesting in creditors of Navigator’s shares in its ship-owning subsidiaries. But it is clear from paras 8 and 9 and again 24 to 26 of the Board’s advice in Cambridge Gas that the Board saw no difference. It did not regard Cambridge Gas as having any interest of value to advance or protect in the shares still held nominally in its name. Their vesting in Navigator’s creditors was no more than a mechanism for disposing of Navigator’s assets, which did not affect or concern Cambridge Gas. The Board was therefore, in its view (and rightly or wrongly), concerned with distribution of the insolvent company’s assets in a narrow and traditional sense.

Amplifying this, the Board approached the situation in Cambridge Gas as follows. The New York court had jurisdiction over Navigator’s assets, since Navigator had submitted to the New York proceedings. Cambridge Gas’s shares in Navigator (located in the Isle of Man, Navigator’s place of incorporation) were “completely and utterly worthless”: [2007] 1 AC 508, para 9. The transfer to Navigator’s creditors of Cambridge Gas’s shares in Navigator had the like effect to a transfer of Navigator’s assets, since Navigator was “an insolvent company, in which the shareholders ha[d] no interest of any value” (para 26). Cambridge Gas’s shares in Navigator were vulnerable in the Isle of Man, under section 152 of the Companies Act 1931, to a similar scheme of arrangement to that which the New York Court intended by its Chapter 11 order. More generally, as I noted in Stone & Rolls Ltd v Moore Stephens [2009] UKHL 39, [2009] AC 1391, paras 236 to 238, in insolvency shareholders’ interests yield to those of creditors.

It was in this limited context that the Board concluded that the New York and Manx courts’ orders could be regarded as doing no more than facilitating or enabling collective execution against Navigator’s property.

The Court of Appeal believed on the contrary that the answer to the present cases lay in the Board’s general statements in Cambridge Gas at paras 19 to 21 regarding the nature of insolvency proceedings. It is true that proceedings to avoid pre-insolvency transactions can be related to the process of collection of assets. That is, their general purpose and effect is to ensure a fair allocation of assets between all who are and were within some specified pre-insolvency period creditors. A dictum of Lord Hoffmann in In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 19, quoted by Lord Collins in paras 15 and 52, is to that effect, though again uttered in a different context to the present.

However, the Board did not see these considerations as answering or eliminating all questions regarding the existence of jurisdiction or at least its exercise in Cambridge Gas. On the contrary, it went on to examine in close detail in paras 22 to 26 the limits of the assistance that a court could properly give. In rejecting the argument that the interference with the shareholding held in Cambridge Gas’s name was beyond the Manx court’s jurisdiction (para 26), the only reason it gave related to the nature of shares in an insolvent company. This meant, according to its advice, that Cambridge Gas had no interest of any value to protect and that registration of the shares in Navigator’s creditors’ name was no more than a mechanism for giving creditors access to Navigator’s assets.

On this basis, the decision in Cambridge Gas is, as Professor Adrian Briggs noted in a penetrating case-note in The British Year Book of International Law (2006) p 575-581, less remarkable (although, as Professor Briggs also notes, it perhaps still poses problems of reconciliation with the House’s decision in Société Eram Shipping Co Ltd v Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd [2003] UKHL 30, [2004] AC 260). But, because the actual decision in Cambridge Gas was so narrowly focused on the nature of a shareholder’s rights in an insolvent company and was not directly challenged, I prefer to leave open its correctness.

Whatever view may be taken as to the validity of the Board’s reasoning in Cambridge Gas, it is clear that it does not cover or control the present appeal. The present cases are not concerned with shares, with situations in which shares are, or are treated by the court as, no more than a key to the insolvent company’s assets or even with situations in which it is clear that those objecting to recognition and enforcement of the foreign courts’ orders have no interests to protect. There are, on the contrary, substantial issues as to whether there were fraudulent preferences giving rise to in personam liability in large amounts. The persons allegedly benefitting by fraudulent preferences did not appear in the relevant foreign insolvency proceedings in which judgment was given against them. They were (leaving aside any question of submission) outside the international jurisdiction of the relevant foreign courts.

Lord Clarke takes a different view from Lord Collins, but does not define either the circumstances in which a foreign court should, under English private international law rules, be recognised as having “jurisdiction to entertain” bankruptcy proceedings or, if one were (wrongly in my view) to treat the whole area as one of discretion, the factors which might make it either unjust or contrary to public policy to recognise an avoidance order made in such foreign proceedings (see paras 193, 200 and 201 of Lord Clarke’s judgment). The scope of the jurisdiction to entertain bankruptcy proceedings which English private international law will recognise a foreign court as having is described in Dicey (in para 31-064 in the 14th and 15th editions) as a “vexed and controversial” question. But it would include situations in which the bankrupt or insolvent company had simply submitted to the foreign bankruptcy jurisdiction. On Lord Clarke’s analysis, in such a case (of which Rubin v Eurofinance is an example), it would be irrelevant that the debtor under the avoidance order had not submitted, and was not on any other basis subject, to the foreign jurisdiction. It would be enough that the judgment debtor had had the chance of appearing and defending before the foreign court. For the reasons given by Lord Collins, I do not accept that this is the common law.

In the light of the above, the Court of Appeal was, in my view, in error in seeing the solution to the present appeals as lying in the advice given by the Board in Cambridge Gas. Even on an assumption that the actual decision in Cambridge Gas can be supported, it cannot and should not be treated as supporting the respondents’ case that fraudulent preference claims and avoidance orders in insolvency proceedings generally escape the common law rules requiring personal or in rem jurisdiction.

I would like to pay tribute to the learning in Lord Collins’ comprehensive judgment. However, left to myself, I would dismiss the appeal in the Rubin case. Since I am in a minority of one, little is to be gained by my writing a long dissent. I will therefore try to explain my reasons shortly. In doing so, I adopt the terminology and abbreviations used by Lord Collins.

I agree with Lord Collins and Lord Mance that the decision of the Privy Council in Cambridge Gas Transportation Corpn v Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Navigator Holdings plc [2007] 1 AC 508 is distinguishable. The facts there were quite different from those here. However, in so far as it is suggested that Cambridge Gas was wrongly decided, I do not agree. Moreover, I do not think that it would be appropriate so to hold because it was not submitted to be wrong in the course of the argument. To my mind the approach which should be adopted is presaged in the speech of Lord Hoffmann in In re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd [2008] 1 WLR 852 and in his judgment in Cambridge Gas.

As I see it, the issue is simply whether an avoidance order made by a foreign bankruptcy court made in the course of the bankruptcy proceedings, whether personal or corporate, which the court has jurisdiction to entertain, is unenforceable if it can fairly be said to be an order made either in personam or in rem. I would answer that question in the negative. Put another way, the question is whether the English court has jurisdiction under English rules of private international law to enforce an avoidance order made in foreign bankruptcy proceedings in circumstances where, under those rules, the foreign court has jurisdiction to entertain the bankruptcy proceedings themselves. I would answer that question in the affirmative. It is not, as I understand it, suggested here that the US court did not have jurisdiction to entertain the bankruptcy proceedings themselves.

The relevant paragraphs of Lord Hoffmann’s judgment in Cambridge Gas are in these terms (as quoted by Lord Collins at para 43 above):

“13.

… Judgments in rem and in personam are judicial determinations of the existence of rights: in the one case, rights over property and in the other, rights against a person. When a judgment in rem or in personam is recognised by a foreign court, it is accepted as establishing the right which it purports to have determined, without further inquiry into the grounds upon which it did so. The judgment itself is treated as the source of the right.

14.

The purpose of bankruptcy proceedings, on the other hand, is not to determine or establish the existence of rights, but to provide a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights are admitted or established. …

15.

… [B]ankruptcy, whether personal or corporate, is a collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them. Of course, as Brightman LJ pointed out in In re Lines Bros Ltd [1983] Ch 1, 20, it may incidentally be necessary in the course of bankruptcy proceedings to establish rights which are challenged: proofs of debt may be rejected; or there may be a dispute over whether or not a particular item of property belonged to the debtor and is available for distribution. There are procedures by which these questions may be tried summarily within the bankruptcy proceedings or directed to be determined by ordinary action. But these again are incidental procedural matters and not central to the purpose of the proceedings.”

The critical paragraph is para 15, which seems to me to make it clear that it is possible to have an order which is both in personam or in rem and an order of the kind referred to by Lord Hoffmann in para 14. Thus it may be incidentally necessary to establish substantive rights in the course of the bankruptcy proceedings as part of a collective proceeding to enforce rights. In such a case the order will be doing two things. It will be both establishing the right and enforcing it. This can be seen from the examples given in para 15. Proofs of debt may be rejected, which is a process which may involve determining, for example, the substantive rights of the creditor against the debtor. Or it may be necessary to determine whether or not a particular item of property belongs to the debtor and is available for distribution. As para 15 contemplates, such procedures may be tried either summarily within the bankruptcy proceedings or by ordinary action. In either such case Lord Hoffmann describes them as incidental procedures which are not central to the purpose of the bankruptcy proceedings. As I see it, in such a case, an avoidance order may be both an order in personam or in rem and an order in the bankruptcy proceedings.

I agree with Lord Collins at para 103 that it is not easy to see why the order of the US Bankruptcy Court in Cambridge Gas was not an order in rem. However, that does not to my mind show that Cambridge Gas was wrongly decided but demonstrates that it is possible to have an in rem order which is made as incidental to bankruptcy proceedings but which is enforceable at common law, provided that the bankruptcy court has jurisdiction in the bankruptcy.

The approach is explained by Lord Hoffmann in HIH at para 30 and in Cambridge Gas at para 16, both of which are quoted by Lord Collins at para 19 above. In HIH he said:

“The primary rule of private international law which seems to me applicable to this case is the principle of (modified) universalism, which has been the golden thread running through English cross-border insolvency law since the 18th century. That principle requires that English courts should, so far as is consistent with justice and UK public policy, co-operate with the courts in the country of the principal liquidation to ensure that all the company’s assets are distributed to its creditors under a single system of distribution.”

In Cambridge Gas he said:

“The English common law has traditionally taken the view that fairness between creditors requires that, ideally, bankruptcy proceedings should have universal application. There should be a single bankruptcy in which all creditors are entitled and required to prove. No one should have an advantage because he happens to live in a jurisdiction where more of the assets or fewer of the creditors are situated.…”

At paras 94 to 98 above Lord Collins discusses the nature of avoidance proceedings. I entirely agree with his analysis. Avoidance provisions requiring the adjustment of prior transactions and the recovery of previous dispositions of property so as to constitute the estate available for distribution are necessary in order to maintain the principle of equality among creditors. At para 15 Lord Collins notes that Lord Hoffmann said at para 19 of HIH that

“the process of collection of assets will include, for example, the use of powers to set aside voidable dispositions, which may differ very considerably from those in the English statutory scheme.”

In short, avoidance proceedings, and therefore avoidance orders, are central to the bankruptcy proceedings. As Lord Collins puts it at para 98, avoidance proceedings are peculiarly the subject of insolvency law.

I accept that to permit the enforcement of an avoidance order in circumstances of this kind would be a development of the common law. However, it seems to me that it would be a principled development. It would in essence be an application of the principle identified by Lord Hoffmann in the passage quoted above from para 30 of HIH that the principle of modified universalism requires that English courts should, so far as is consistent with justice and United Kingdom public policy, co-operate with the courts in the country of the principal liquidation to ensure that all the company’s assets are distributed to its creditors under a single system of distribution.

The position of the judgment debtor in such a case would be protected by the principle that the English court would only enforce a judgment in a case like this where to do so was consistent with justice and United Kingdom public policy. All would depend upon the facts of the particular case. In the case of Rubin, there would be no injustice in enforcing the judgment against the appellants.

Lord Mance notes at para 189 that I do not define either the circumstances in which a foreign court should be recognised as having jurisdiction to entertain bankruptcy proceedings or the factors which would make it unjust or contrary to public policy to recognise an avoidance order made in such foreign proceedings. As I see it, these are matters which would be worked out on a case by case basis in (as Lord Hoffmann put it in HIH at para 30) co-operating with the courts in the country of the principal liquidation to ensure that all the company’s assets are distributed to its creditors under a single system of distribution. It would not be irrelevant that the debtor under the avoidance order had not submitted. All would depend upon the particular circumstances of the case, including the reasons why the debtor had not submitted.

In essence, on the critical question, I prefer the reasoning of the Court of Appeal, which is contained in the judgment of Ward LJ, with whom Wilson LJ and Henderson J agreed. Lord Collins has concisely summarised their reasoning in paras 88 to 90, substantially as follows: (a) the judgment was final and conclusive, and for definite sums of money, and on the face of the orders was a judgment in personam; (b) it was common ground that the judgment debtors were not present when the proceedings were instituted, and did not submit to the jurisdiction, and so at first blush had an impregnable defence; (c) Cambridge Gas decided that the bankruptcy order with which it was concerned was neither in personam nor in rem, and its purpose was simply to establish a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights were admitted or established: Pattni v Ali [2007] 2 AC 85, para 23; (d) bankruptcy was a collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them: Cambridge Gas [2007] 1 AC 508, para 15; (e) the issue was whether avoidance proceedings which could only be brought by the representative of the bankrupt were to be characterised as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, ie part of the collective proceeding to enforce rights and not to establish them; (f) the adversary proceedings were part and parcel of the Chapter 11 proceedings; (g) the ordinary rules for enforcing foreign judgments in personam did not apply to bankruptcy proceedings; (h) avoidance mechanisms were integral to and central to the collective nature of bankruptcy and were not merely incidental procedural matters; (i) the process of collection of assets will include the use of powers to set aside voidable dispositions, which may differ very considerably from those in the English statutory scheme: HIH [2008] 1 WLR 852, para 19; (j) the judgment of the US Bankruptcy Court was a judgment in, and for the purposes of, the collective enforcement regime of the insolvency proceedings, and was governed by the sui generis private international law rules relating to insolvency; (k) that was a desirable development of the common law founded on the principles of modified universalism, and did not require the court to enforce anything that it could not do, mutatis mutandis, in a domestic context; (l) there was a principle of private international law that bankruptcy should be unitary and universal, and there should be a unitary insolvency proceeding in the court of the bankrupt’s domicile which receives worldwide recognition and should apply universally to all the bankrupt’s assets; (m) there was a further principle that recognition carried with it the active assistance of the court which included assistance by doing whatever the English court could do in the case of a domestic insolvency; (n) there was no unfairness to the appellants in upholding the judgment because they were fully aware of the proceedings, and after taking advice chose not to participate: see [2011] Ch 133, paras 38, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 61-62 and 64.

That seems to me to be a correct summary of the views of the Court of Appeal. I agree with those views subject to this comment on point (c). I am not sure that in Cambridge Gas the Privy Council decided that the bankruptcy order with which it was concerned was neither in personam nor in rem. It held that the purpose of the order was simply to establish a mechanism of collective execution against the property of the debtor by creditors whose rights were admitted or established. As discussed above, it may well have appreciated that it was also an order in rem. However that may be, I agree with Lord Collins at para 90 that, in short, the Court of Appeal accepted that the judgment sought to be enforced in the instant cases was an in personam judgment, but decided that the Dicey Rule did not apply to foreign judgments in avoidance proceedings because they were central to the collective enforcement regime in insolvency and were governed by special rules. I agree with the reasoning of the Court of Appeal. Put another way, the Dicey Rule should in my opinion be modified to include a fifth case in which a foreign court has jurisdiction to give a judgment in personam capable of enforcement or recognition as against the person against whom it is given. That fifth case would be if the judgment was given in avoidance proceedings as part of foreign bankruptcy proceedings which the foreign court had jurisdiction to entertain.

I recognise that there are other ways of achieving such a result, as for example by an equivalent provision to the EC Insolvency Regulation: per Lord Collins at paras 99-101. I also recognise that it would be possible to adopt a more radical approach not limited to avoidance proceedings. However, so limited, I respectfully disagree with the view expressed by Lord Collins at para 128 that this development would not be an incremental development of existing principles but a radical departure from substantially settled law. For the reasons given in para 198, it would in essence be an application of the principle of modified universalism. It seems to me that in these days of global commerce, the step taken by the Court of Appeal was but a small step forward. Judgment debtors are protected by the principle that no order would be made if it were contrary to justice or United Kingdom public policy. Moreover, on the facts here, I can see no basis upon which the order made by the Court of Appeal would be either unjust or contrary to public policy. Finally, I do not think that that conclusion is undermined by any absence of reciprocity.

For these reasons, I would dismiss the appeal in the Rubin case on the common law point. On all other issues I agree with the judgment of Lord Collins.