The current global pandemic has provided and will continue to provide plentiful opportunities for fraud and opportunism. One area which is potentially open to abuse is the protection of companies from the service of statutory demands or the presentation of winding up petitions following the enactment of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA). It is important to consider alternative remedies if a debtor seeks to use this to their advantage.

Liquidators and creditors of insolvent companies will be breathing a collective sigh of relief at the recent Supreme Court judgment in Jetivia v Bilta, where it held that the illegality defence was not available where a company, through its liquidators, was making claims against the directors for breaches of their duties to the company.  In some ways the result was not that surprising, but should it have gone the other way, it would have deprived liquidators of a well-used weapon in their armoury for bringing claims against directors who have defrauded a company on its way to i