The Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010 (“TPR”) will finally come into force on 1 August 2016, making it easier for third parties to bring claims against insurers of insolvent companies.  It has taken more than six years, spread over three separate governments and was amended even before it came into force, but TPR will finally replace the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930 (the “1930 Act”).

The Background

It is very much the nature of the job that appointed Office Holders are required to make difficult and challenging decisions on each and every case they take. On some occasions those decisions are well received – on others, not so well. Creditors affected by those decisions can take comfort that the Office Holder is experienced in making those difficult decisions, is an Officer of the Court, has their own licence to protect and, fundamentally, has a duty to treat all creditors fairly.

On 1 October 2015 the Insolvency (Protection of Essential Supplies) Order 2015 (“PESO”) will come into force. PESO aims to strengthen the statutory protection provided to insolvent companies and insolvency practitioners who need to utilise ‘essential supplies’ to continue to trade.

Essential Supplies

Despite the fact that there have been no football club insolvencies in over two seasons, on 5 June 2015 the Football League voted to amend its rules on football insolvencies. The amendments to the existing rules were approved at the recent Football League Conference and will come into force from the start of the 2015-16 football season. They provide a range of changes to take a harder line on clubs (or their parent companies) that enter administration and to improve returns to creditors, both football and non-football related.

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 (the “Act”) introduces special administration procedures for social housing associations which aim to protect the level of social housing in the UK. The new housing administration orders (“HAOs”) create an additional objective for insolvency practitioners to try to keep social housing in the regulated housing sector to maintain levels of social housing.

Consumers could be set to jump up the insolvency hierarchy if Parliament backs the latest Law Commission recommendations.

The Law Commission’s report, Consumer Prepayments on Retailer Insolvency, recommends, among other things, that consumers who prepay for goods or services over £250 in the six months prior to a formal insolvency process should be paid out as preferential creditors instead of unsecured creditors.

On 5 April 2022, the UK government published the first review of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (the Rules) (the Report). It is evident from the Report that many respondents took the opportunity to raise issues faced in practice, not just with the Rules, but with the operation of the insolvency legislation in general.

In Minor Hotel Group MEA DMCC v Dymant & Anor [2022] EWHC 340 (Ch), is the first reported High Court decision considering a contested moratorium since the new Part A1 moratorium ("moratorium") was introduced in 2020, in which the monitors successfully opposed an application by the parent company's secured creditor to remove the monitors and end the moratorium.

CVAs are a useful tool in the restructuring tool kit, and may prove extremely helpful to retailers or hospitality companies as a means of supporting those businesses as they emerge from the pandemic. The flexibility of a CVA and the ability to shape the terms of a proposal to meet the specific needs of a business have seen an increasing number of consumer led businesses use CVAs, and they have become popular as a means to restructure businesses that have a significant lease portfolio.

Following our previous alert that considered rent reductions and modifications to lease terms post New Look and Regis, this alert considers what those CVA challenge cases tell landlords about calculating a landlord's claim for voting purposes and the disclosure requirements.