Background

The case concerned royalty payments, which a creditor had a contractual right to receive, arising from iron ore produced at a mine in Sierra Leone.

The parent company of the Sierra Leonean mining company went into administration and administrators from PwC were appointed. The creditor's director called the administrators to stress the importance of bringing the royalty payments to the attention of a third party purchaser.

The administrators subsequently sold the mine, but did not make the purchaser aware of the royalty issue.

Seafood Shack Ltd v Alan Darlow [2019] EWHC 1567 (Ch)

A lease of restaurant premises was granted to a company that did not exist; there was no legal basis for correcting the lease, and the similarly-named company claiming rights was held to have none.

A breathing space scheme for individuals with problem debt will be implemented by 2021, the Treasury has confirmed. Draft regulations are expected later this year.

Lenders, loan servicers, debt purchasers and other acquiring funds can now begin taking steps to ensure that they are prepared for this change.

What is breathing space?

When can an insolvency practitioner pursue directors for declaring unlawful dividends?

Does an insolvency practitioner need to demonstrate that the directors knew, or ought to have known, that the dividend was paid unlawfully, or is it a strict liability issue?

Can director/shareholders rely on professionally prepared accounts to avoid liability?

In this week's update: directors implementing a management buy-out did not owe fiduciary duties to the other shareholders and a distribution was valid despite the relevant accounts not being in the usual format.

Directors did not owe fiduciary duty to shareholders

The High Court has held that the directors of a company did not owe a fiduciary duty to the company’s shareholders when implementing a management buy-out (MBO).

What happened?

An insight into the key issues and challenges facing global infrastructure projects, and a look at possible solutions and mitigations.

In brief

Whilst receiving a judgment in your favour may feel like the culmination of a potentially lengthy legal process, it may be just the first step (though an important one) on the path to financial recovery. In our latest insight, we look at how and when you can enforce a judgment to realise payment of any damages or costs which have been awarded.

What is enforcement?

The UK government has published a draft Finance Bill 2020, which includes a provision that, if enacted, will give HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) secondary preferential creditor status for certain taxes which a company has collected but failed to pay to HMRC on the date it enters insolvency.

New Priority Status

In this week's update: a distribution was valid despite discrepancies in the accounts justifying the dividend and an examination of vexatious resolutions.

Court considers whether demerger by dividend was valid (part 2)

In today’s insecure commercial lettings market, it is becoming increasingly common for landlords to take a significant rent deposit when granting a new lease and to enforce their rights under the rent deposit deed. This is putting the drafting and enforcement of rent deposit deeds under scrutiny. How do the parties to a rent deposit deed protect their positions when the landlord assigns the reversion to the lease?