Further to our blog last week regarding the restrictions on presentation of winding-up petitions being (partially) lifted, the legislation replacing the existing restrictions on presenting winding-up petitions has now been passed and is due to come into force on 29 September 2021.

On Monday, Zacaroli J handed down his eagerly anticipated judgment in Lazari Properties (2) Limited (and others) v New Look Retailers Limited (and others).

The New Look landlords challenged the New Look CVA and raised a number of arguments which some believed could be the end of CVAs as we know them. In particular, the New Look landlords argued that CVAs had gone far beyond the use for which they had been intended and sought to challenge the jurisdictional basis upon which some CVAs are implemented.

The key arguments were that:

The case of Arlington Infrastructure Ltd (In Administration) v Woolrych [2020] EWHC 3123 (Ch) is a cautionary reminder to qualifying floating charge holders (and their advisors) to review the terms of all security documents, before seeking to appoint an administrator.

Earlier in the year, we published a blog regarding the impact of the moratorium introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020. In particular, we flagged that the moratorium may result in a significant loss of control for secured lenders and qualified floating charge holders (QFCH).