Singapore: special resolution required to voluntarily wind-up company, Court of Appeal rules

In holding that a special resolution of the members was required, the Court of Appeal - in Superpark Oy v Super Park Asia Group Pte Ltd [2021] SGCA 8, available here (pdf) - rejected the argument that a third route was available in addition to the two circumstances outlined within section 290(1) of the Companies Act. The court stressed the "substantial and meaningful" distinction between compulsory and voluntary winding-up - a distinction that, in its view, would be elided if a company's creditors were able to do away with the requirement for the members of the company to have passed a special resolution for voluntary winding up as required by section 290(1).

Note: section 290(1) has been replaced by a provision expressed in largely identical terms: section 160 of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, which came into force on 30 July 2020.