Personal insolvency arrangement fails to satisfy necessary conditions

Personal insolvency – preliminary issue - personal insolvency practitioner has proposed a personal insolvency arrangement on behalf of a debtor – proposal not supported by a majority of the creditors - brought an application under s. 115A which permits the court (subject to satisfaction of a significant number of conditions) to confirm the coming into effect of such a proposed arrangement - conditions which must be satisfied - at least one class of creditors has accepted the proposed arrangement by a majority of over 50% of the value of the debts owed to that class - a single creditor is capable of constituting a class of creditor for the purposes of s. 115A (9) (g) – whether the creditor who voted in favour of the proposal can be differentiated from the other unsecured creditors – relevant facts - constitution of classes of creditor for the purposes of the 2012-2015 Acts - whether the rights of the persons said to constitute a class of creditors are similar - no basis to suggest that it was intended by the legislature that a new or different test should be adopted – judicial comity - a minor dissimilarity in rights as between one creditor and another will not be sufficient to require that they should be treated as separate classes- nothing in the case law dealing with the constitution of creditor classes to suggest that classes should be constituted by reference to whether or not the claims of the relevant creditors all arose from a similar incident - applying the test laid down in caselaw all of the unsecured creditors should be treated as a single class – security held by objecting creditor - a creditor who holds security from a principal debtor is not prevented from exercising his or her rights to pursue and seek payment from a guarantor in respect of the debt guaranteed - origin of the indebtedness is irrelevant - no basis to form the view that merely because accepting creditor provided services to the debtor they should be treated as falling into a separate class - allegation of animus – necessary conditions not satisfied – application to confirm proposal refused -