A case of international arbitrage. Former high flying businessman George Kerr, now bankrupt in both England and New Zealand, unsuccessfully attempted to have his New Zealand bankruptcy put on hold while his England bankruptcy plays out.
Insolvency law in New Zealand has its origins in English bankruptcy law, but the two have now diverged with differing rules potentially resulting in differing outcomes.
Mr Kerr told the High Court there could be multiple problems should both his England and New Zealand bankruptcies run in parallel, particularly questions over control of assets and allocation of liabilities.
In England, he was bankrupted in July 2026 on an unpaid business debt of some US$400,000.
Ten days later in New Zealand, he was bankrupted on a $88.3 million debt owed Bank of New Zealand.
Now aged sixty, he has had a colourful business career with more than a decade of New Zealand litigation behind him, primarily disputes relating to operation of Pyne Holdings and his Torchlight Fund.
Most recently, his business operations have been run out of Guernsey, a crown dependency technically not part of the United Kingdom.
Refusing to put Mr Kerr’s New Zealand bankruptcy on hold, Associate Judge Malarao said both New Zealand and England have in place similar rules to deal with concurrent bankruptcies; rules based on a 1997 model law proposed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, setting a framework to deal with any legal complications in concurrent bankruptcies of having assets and liabilities extending beyond national boundaries.
Bank of New Zealand v. Kerr – High Court (5.08.26)
26.219