On 26 June 2020 the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (the Act) came into force. The Act included far-reaching wholescale reforms to the UK’s restructuring toolbox, including the introduction of the restructuring plan, which has the potential to be a gamechanger for restructurings.
It also included temporary measures dealing with COVID-19 impacts on companies. The two most significant temporary measures for companies facing financial difficulties as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic were:
On 18 December 2018 the English Court of Appeal held in the case of OJSC International Bank of Azerbaijan that the rule in Gibbs is still a fundamental tenet of English insolvency law and not to be sidestepped by the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations.
Facts
The facts in summary are these:
On 24 July 2013, in BESTrustees v Kaupthing, Singer & Friedlander [2013] EWHC 2407 (Ch) the High Court ruled in favour of an underfunded scheme, whose insolvent sponsor hoped to offset £2m in payments against its outstanding debt.
OTG v Barke1 is the most recent judgement by the employment appeal tribunal (EAT) on whether the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (known as 'TUPE') apply to sales by companies in administration under schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986.
DWP consults on amendments to the employer-debt regulations
Background
The High Court (Mr Justice Trower) today gave its judgment sanctioning Amigo’s ‘New Business Scheme’. A team of us at Freshfields were pleased to help Amigo with this. Here we outline the technical innovations that, despite significant legal and regulatory uncertainty, delivered the best available outcome for Amigo’s redress creditors and the prospect of Amigo lending again for the benefit of those creditors and future customers. We also identify two approaches that addressed the practical challenge of implementing a complex legal process with retail creditors.
On 28 June 2021, the UK High Court declined to sanction Hurricane Energy Plc’s restructuring plan. This was the first time a restructuring plan seeking to achieve a debt-for-equity swap against the wishes of existing shareholders had come before the court.
Background
The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (the Act) introduced significant changes to insolvency law, including permitting companies to propose a “restructuring plan”. The restructuring plan offers a flexible option for companies that sponsor defined benefit pension schemes to compromise their obligations to creditors and, potentially, to the pension scheme itself.
The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)continues to enhance its legislative framework after recently publishing its fourth round of amendments to the ADGM Insolvency Regulations 2015.
As part of the latest round of amendments, the ADGM has introduced a new chapter dealing with priority funding (PDF), similar to US Chapter 11 style debtor-in-possession (DIP) funding.