Bracia Czeczowiczka v Otto Markus Bracia Czeczowiczka v Rudolf Loy    Bankruptcy – Bankruptcy notice – Creditor preventing debtor satisfying the debt – Order
attaching debt – Onus of proof.
Privy Council – Kenya – Execution – Application of decisions under Debtors Act 1869.
(i) Before the war, the creditors, a Polish firm, sold to the debtors, an Austrian firm, trading in
East Africa, certain cotton goods. The period of credit had not expired on the outbreak of the
war; but the debtors being enemy nationals were interned and their African business and
property was lost to them. After the war they had a claim against the German Government,
but had then become nationals of Czechoslovakia. In 1924 the debtors returned to East
Africa, and in the same year the creditors sued them in Vienna and obtained judgment against
them. In 1925 the debtors obtained an award from the Mixed German Czechoslovak Arbitral
Tribunal against the German State for a large sum and in the same year the creditors obtained
an attachment on the “alleged debtors’ claim against the Reich Settling Office.” In 1932 the
creditors obtained judgment for their debt in Kenya and in 1933 they caused the debtors to be
served with two bankruptcy notices. The bankruptcy law in Kenya on this point is the same
as in England under the Bankruptcy Act 1914. The debtors sought to have the orders set aside
on the ground that by attaching the award in Germany the creditors had prevented them
satisfying the judgment:—