High Court, in an application by the Revenue Commissioners to direct a receiver to categorise eleven sets of assets as floating charges, refuses to make directions where the receiver’s consent was not forthcoming, on the grounds that the applicant had failed to provide sufficient evidence to show that the receiver’s actions were incorrect or failed to comply with company law.
Receivers – application by Revenue to order the receiver to categorise assets as a floating charge – by composite debenture, a clothing company, its parent company and group of companies charged and assigned their assets to the bank as fixed or floating charges – receiver appointed – receiver sent a schedule of realisations to an officer of the clothing company – stated that the schedule did not provide information to a sufficient degree for the applicants to agree or disagree with the categorisation of each asset being the subject of a fixed or floating charge - s.98 of Companies Act, 1963 grants to the clothing company priority to the assets over which a receiver is appointed pursuant to a floating charge provided the company is not in the course of being wound up - eleven categories of assets - relevant charging sub-clauses - negative pledge - not being receivers, applicants have a limited right to apply for directions - Court does not have general jurisdiction to consider whether things are fair or unfair in this type of application - burden is on the applicants to prove that there is an injustice, that that injustice stems from the misapplication of insolvency law and that the injustice is specific to an established right - bank novated its rights and obligations under the debenture to Hilco - whether or not a charge created by a debenture was a fixed charge - intention of the parties – characteristics of a floating charge - fixed charge can be created over book debts and bank accounts - book debts - whether the bank had a contractual right to control the book debts and revenues which could be enforced against the clothing company - onus on the applicants to adduce sufficient evidence to allow for the directions to be made or to lay the basis for a more focused direction which could allow for the true position to be ascertained.