Five years after the collapse of construction company giant, Carillion PLC, its former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Zafar Khan has been disqualified from acting as a company director, or being concerned in its management, for 11 years. This is just 4 years short of the maximum period of 15 years, reflecting the seriousness of the allegations against him. The Insolvency Service accepted an undertaking from Mr Khan in settlement of its action against him.
In the year leading up to lockdown in March 2020, there were 18,000 corporate insolvencies. The year following lockdown, this figure dramatically dropped by over a third to 11,000.
With the significant reduction in corporate insolvencies, it could be suggested that the Government support has actually been too effective and companies which ought to have entered an insolvency process have avoided doing so due to a mixture of financial support and restrictions on creditors, in particular landlords.
Amplifying JCAM Commercial Real Estate Property XV Ltd v Davis Haulage Ltd [2018] EWCA CIV 276 the court has again considered repeated Notices of Intention to Appoint (NOITA) and the effect on the interim moratorium.
Background
This case involved the Company filing 4 successive NOITAs although only two of them were the subject of these proceedings (NOITA 1 and NOITA 2).
The Company owned a Property which was subject to a legal mortgage and QFC. The secured loan was in default and the Company was seeking to delay enforcement whilst it refinanced.
The proposed new regulations to safeguard the proprietary of pre-packs have caused alarm in the profession, one of the areas of concern being the requirement that the Evaluator central to the process requires no professional qualifications but thankfully are qualified if they think they are (yes, you did detect some sarcasm).
The Regulations will mean that an administrator cannot execute a pre-pack if the following applies:
Background
The Debtor was 82 years of age, and subject to a bankruptcy petition in the County Court in the sum of £62,000 which was heard on 19 December 2019.
The issue in this case concerned the failure of a holder of a Qualifying Floating Charge (QFC) to give notice to a prior QFC holder before appointing administrators, therefore potentially calling into question the validity of the administration.
Having successfully obtained a public interest winding-up order in Re PAG Management Services Limited [2015] BCC 720 which operated a business rates avoidance scheme using Members’ Voluntary Liquidations, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy unsuccessfully tackled its successor in the Court of Appeal.
The scheme in this case (Scheme 3) was a variant upon two earlier schemes, Scheme 2 being no longer in operation following the public interest winding-up of PAG Management Services Limited.
The facts of this case were somewhat unusual although it serves as a reminder of the principles involved in the trading of a business by a trustee in bankruptcy.
Background
The background facts to this case are relatively straightforward: a group of companies consisting of the parent (‘AIL’) and three subsidiaries (‘the Subsidiaries’) operated in the energy sector.
A lender (‘Junior Creditor’) advanced approximately £39M to AIL, secured by qualifying floating charges (‘QFC’) over AIL and the Subsidiaries. A second lender (‘Senior Creditor’) subsequently lent £5M to AIL secured by a QFC over AIL but not the Subsidiaries.
Twelve creditors (representing about 16% of company debt, and represented by a firm of licensed insolvency practitioners) have failed in an attempt to compel administrators to move to creditors’ voluntary liquidation, alternatively an order for compulsory liquidation. The Creditors also sought the revocation of a proposal ‘purported to have been deemed approved’.
The Company was involved in construction work, falling victim to the Covid-19 pandemic in that it was forced to cease trading following the announcement of lockdown on 23 March 2020.