The annual top 10 business law decisions of 2022 have been announced and Bennett Jones acted as counsel for the Receiver in number five—Peace River Hydro Partners v Petrowest Corp.

In this much-anticipated November 10, 2022, decision, a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) addressed the intersection of arbitration and insolvency law, ruling that an otherwise valid arbitration agreement may be “inoperative” in the context of a court-ordered receivership under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

Bennett Jones LLP acted as counsel for the Receiver throughout the proceedings, having successfully defended the Defendants' original application and the subsequent appeals to the British Columbia Court of Appeal and the SCC.

Peace River Hydro Partners v Petrowest Corp is an important decision, creating new law in Canada on whether a court appointed receiver is necessarily bound by an insolvent debtor's contractual arbitration clauses.

Read our blog, The Supreme Court of Canada Rules on Intersection of Insolvency and Arbitration Law, for more information on the case.