Court orders winding-up of Informatics International Lanka

The winding-up Petition filed by IFS AB, to wind-up Informatics International Lanka Ltd, was allowed and the winding-up Order was delivered by Commercial High Court Judge Ahsan R. Marikkar on 7 October.

A winding-up Petition was preferred to the Commercial High Court Colombo, by multinational software company IFS AB headquartered in Sweden, to wind up Informatics International Lanka Limited. 

The latter is an Informatics Company, as its name suggests, a well-known name in the IT sector in Sri Lanka headed by founder and Chairman Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe.

The Judge of the Commercial High Court in delivering the winding-up order took into consideration the arbitration award granted in favour of IFS against Informatics, which has been enforced by the High Court in Sri Lanka and affirmed by the Supreme Court.

It is noted that, despite the said arbitration award being enforced in Sri Lanka, Informatics has failed to pay the dues owed and payable to IFS as ordered by the arbitration award. The winding-up Order further goes on to state that IFS has taken all the steps to execute the writ however has failed to recover any assets to auction as Informatics has no assets in their registered office. 

The winding-up order further states that Informatics has not made any attempt or proposed even a settlement plan to pay the monies payable to IFS as per the arbitration award.

The high Court judge has drawn a comparison with several English and Indian judgments and has taken into cognizance that Informatics has failed to satisfy the writ sought to be executed against them and as a result had failed to pay the monies owed to IFS.

The judgment recognises that, where a company fails to satisfy the execution of an order of court in favour of a creditor, the company is deemed unable to pay its debts and a creditor in such instance is entitled to make an application under the provisions of the Companies Act to wind-up the company which has to satisfy a court order by paying the debt.

The judgment finally concludes that IFS has proven that Informatics International Lanka (Pvt) Ltd has failed to settle the dues owed to IFS and has established sufficient grounds to wind-up the Informatics Company.

This order of the Commercial High Court has given effect to a useful provision of the Companies Act setting precedence in the winding-up regime to all judgment-creditors who are owed monies by companies incorporated under the Act who fail to satisfy orders and decrees of court.

In light of the winding-up order of the Commercial High Court, the Informatics Company led by Dr. Gamini Wickremasinghe will undergo liquidation.

President’s Counsel Avindra Rodrigo with Rozali Fernando instructed by FJ & G de Saram appeared for the Petitioner, IFS, and President’s Counsel Harsha Amarasekere with Kanchana Peiris appeared for Informatics International 

Lanka Ltd.