The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that companies cannot walk away from their obligations to clean up oil wells, with those responsibilities trumping payment to creditors if they go broke. The Globe's Jeff Lewis writes that the 5-2 decision Thursday also deals a blow to banks that could threaten financing to smaller resource players. The court said Alberta's rules compelling oil and gas firms to remediate spent wells are in the public interest and do not conflict with banks' rights to collect on debts in bankruptcy cases. The judgment overturned lower-court rulings that enabled a bankrupt energy company called Redwater Energy to hive off and sell its most profitable wells and discard the rest, forcing the wider industry to cover costs of cleaning them up. "Bankruptcy is not a licence to ignore rules," the majority wrote in the court's decision. The ruling could have knock-on effects in resource industries across the country. Landowner advocates and environmental groups applauded Thursday's decision but said Alberta and other Western provinces still face soaring financial liabilities tied to tens of thousands of inactive and defunct oil and gas wells.