Faegre Drinker’s London Finance & Restructuring team succeeded in their litigation before the Supreme Court regarding the BVI liquidation of Peak Hotels and Resorts Limited. Our team has been representing BVI liquidators in a plethora of litigation since 2016, working in collaboration with partner Sue Moore's previous firm.
Peak Hotels was a partner in a joint venture which owned the prestigious Aman hotel chain, much loved by celebrities around the world. A dispute between JV partners triggered its downfall, involving litigation between a Russian oligarch and the individual behind Peak Hotels, who is now in jail in the US on fraud charges. Peak went into liquidation in the BVI, and our clients, the liquidators, were left to pick up the pieces, and deal with the existing litigation and various new actions that were commenced. The litigation has generated some important jurisprudence on points of English insolvency law, with our clients prevailing in all of the litigation.
The latest victory brings to an end one of the last outstanding strands of the litigation, involving a question as to whether an equitable right pre insolvency could be converted to a security right post insolvency, which trumped all other creditors. We won at first instance, in the UK Court of Appeal, and have now also won in the UK Supreme Court. There is no further right of appeal.
We also secured victory on the other remaining piece of litigation when the Privy Council refused to allow our opponent's efforts to reopen a matter determined by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal about a year ago in our favor.
Our clients were originally KPMG BVI Limited, and became Teneo BVI Limited after being acquired by Teneo in 2021.
