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Koza Altin v Koza Ltd: director’s undertaking averts just and equitable winding up at summary judgment; deadlock and summary judgment thresholds clarified (England and Wales)

Published on: 10 October 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Restructuring & Insolvency expert
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Koza Altin İşletmeleri AŞ v Koza Ltd and another [2025] EWHC 2304 (Ch) What are the practical implications of this case?

Practitioners know that petitions to wind up on ‘just and equitable’ grounds are a crude mechanism for resolving stalemates and other shareholder disputes, especially when the impasse is ‘self‑inflicted’ through poor planning by the shareholders when setting the articles and/or omitting a robust (or any) shareholders’ agreement. Following Re Yenidje Tobacco Co Ltd, the court may step in where there is a true deadlock, and that principle is not confined to quasi‑partnership companies. Even so, outcomes are unpredictable and such petitions remain very much a measure of last resort. This ruling underscores those themes, in the context of a long‑running dispute and its particular facts and background. A late undertaking from the director, given at the eleventh hour, was enough to defeat an application for summary judgment and strike out, and it tipped the scales against making a winding‑up order. Needless to say, if adversaries can reach a mutually acceptable accommodation (or, at least, a tolerably unacceptable one), that route offers the best certainty...

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