A “pre-packaged sale”, or “pre-pack”, is an arrangement under which the sale of all or part of a company’s business or assets is negotiated with a purchaser prior to the appointment of an administrator, and effected shortly (perhaps immediately) after appointment. The administrator effects the sale without the business being offered to the open market.

For debtors with limited liabilities, little surplus income and minimal gross assets, the new Debt Relief Order (DRO) is a further tool to consider in managing their debts. DROs, which came into force on 6 April 2009, are aimed at those who find they are unable to pay off their debts within a reasonable time but for whom other forms of debt relief, such as bankruptcy or Individual Voluntary Arrangements, are unavailable, or perhaps unaffordable.

What are the criteria for a DRO?

A DRO can be applied for where the debtor:

Historically, the United Kingdom has not had a specialised bankruptcy regime for dealing with the failures of financial institutions. Rather, these were handled under the same rules that applied to ordinary corporations.

In (1) James Robert Tucker (2) Jeremy Spratt (Joint Supervisors of Energy Holdings (No 3)(in liquidation) v Gold Fields Mining LLC [2009] EWCA Civ 173 the Joint Supervisors (JS) of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) appealed against a decision that they had wrongly excluded a claim form on the grounds that it had been out of time.

In the construction industry, contractor insolvency delays projects, increases costs and may deprive the employer of remedies and third parties of meaningful warranty protection. In 2008, it was reported that the number of construction firms facing grave financial concerns was 547 per cent higher than in 2007 (Building, 14 November 2008). As contractor insolvencies are likely to increase in 2009, how can an employer protect its position at the start of a project and when contractor insolvency occurs?  

Contractual safeguards  

Where a debtor's assets exceed his liabilities, the onus is on the debtor to prove he can not pay his debts if a creditor seeks to annul the bankruptcy order.

In Paulin v Paulin and another, the defendant petitioned for his own bankruptcy claiming he was unable to pay his debts. The claimant applied for the order to be annulled claiming the defendant could afford to pay his debts and was deliberately attempting to defeat her claims in the matrimonial proceedings.

Where the entirety of a debt is not included in an agreement to settle, a creditor can continue to prove in a bankruptcy for the balance.

With administrations and liquidations on the rise, companies may well-find that they occupy premises under a sub-lease where their immediate landlord has become insolvent and we look at their rights and how the position differs north and south of the border.

In April 2008 the Bankruptcy & Diligence (Scotland) Act 2007 ("the Act") introduced a new regime for obtaining permission for (and recalling) diligence on the dependence of a court action (i.e. arrestment and inhibition). In terms of the Act, before granting (or recalling) warrant for diligence, the court must be satisfied that:

On 23 March 2009, the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) published a report on the market impact of the Lehman Brothers default. The report began with a brief discussion of the causes of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. It then set out some of the regulatory and industry responses to the challenges in the securities field including: