Liquidators were appointed by the Royal Court of Jersey over RTI, a Jersey company upon the application of a creditor holding a substantial arbitration award.
The liquidators sought the assistance of the English court via a “letter of request” - a letter from the Jersey court (at the liquidators’ behest) to the English High Court, asking for the Jersey liquidation to be recognised in England & Wales and for the liquidators to be given judicial assistance here. This cross-border recognition regime is contained in section 426 of the (English) Insolvency Act 1986 and applies to certain countries and territories - Jersey included. It is separate to, and pre-dates, the Cross Border Insolvency Regulations.
The request looked to combine Jersey law transaction avoidance powers with English law investigation / asset collection powers, together with an English liquidation’s stay on proceedings.
Previous case-law, setting out the principles on which an English court should exercise its s.426 discretion, clearly anticipated the court choosing to apply either the liquidators’ “home” powers or the English law powers of an English liquidator.
It was no bar to granting assistance that the chosen set of laws was more powerful for the liquidators than the other system’s equivalent laws.
Neither the judge here, nor the liquidators’ counsel, were aware of a previous case granting s.426 assistance with such a combination of powers, particularly where there was not yet any identified respondent or detailed basis for a claim.
However, the judge (perhaps against the backdrop of some potential dissipation of assets by RTI, which the liquidators had sought to investigate under Jersey powers - with that investigation needing further work in England) noted that:
- The Jersey and English provisions in question had the common purpose of preserving assets and protecting creditor interests.
- The inclusion of a territory in the list of s.426 jurisdictions showed Parliament’s view that the legal systems shared fundamental values.
- The liquidators were clearly acting for the benefit of creditors.
Therefore, subject to any target of the liquidators’ powers being entitled to apply to the court to challenge the specifics, the judge granted the mix-and-match order: not just in relation to specific powers, but allowing the liquidators to pick English or Jersey law generally as they required moving forwards with the insolvency process.
Given the considerable overlap in the nature and purpose of the Jersey and English provisions, we respectfully consider this a logical next-step in the case-law, wholly consistent with the English courts’ open-door to international assistance and cooperation. While s.426 letters of request are not encountered every day, it will be interesting to see if future applications are made in such wide terms - and whether the courts will readily make such wide orders, happy to lean on a protective liberty-to-apply rider.
RTI Limited (In Liquidation) [2026] EWHC 1351 (Ch)
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