For anyone thinking of donating antiques or other valuable gifts to be part of a museum collection there is a moral to follow: beware how you give and to who you give it to! This was never better demonstrated than in the example of the Wedgwood collection and the case of the disappearing museum.
The revised Insolvency Practice Direction has been published and approved with effect from 4 July. This replaces the PD published in April this year. The revisions (primarily dealing with the distribution of specialised insolvency work) widen the scope of work which can be undertaken in local courts, whilst also giving the ability to transfer insolvency cases back to the local hearing centres if there is sufficient expertise to deal with the matter.
The benefits of being a director of a limited company are many. Not necessarily because of the tax benefits but, rather, the personal protection given to directors by the corporate veil surrounding limited companies.
That corporate veil means that directors’ liabilities for the debts of the company are limited to the extent of their shareholding (maybe £1) in the UK this concept (outside insolvency) is sacrosanct and protected by the Courts.
A winding up petition is a petition to bring the life of a company to an end. From the point of view of a creditor (person/company to whom money is owed), commencing winding up proceedings should be regarded as a last resort.
Under section 122 Insolvency Act 1986 (“IA 1986”), there are certain prescribed circumstances in which a winding up petition can be filed with the court. One of those prescribed circumstances is when a company is unable to pay debts in excess of £750.
The Agricultural Credits Act 1928 ("ACA 1928") enables a farmer to grant an Agricultural Charge to a bank over all his farming stock and other agricultural assets, but not the land he farms.
An Agricultural Charge can be a fixed charge, a floating charge or both. However, any assets obtained by the farmer after the creation of the Charge will only be subject to a floating charge. Only a registered deposit taking bank or the Bank of England can take an Agricultural Charge.
A floating charge is automatically converted to a fixed charge if:
Summary: Robin Ganguly explains predictive coding and technology assisted review for trial use, and how the technology might be used for insolvency investigations.
The High Court has given judgment in a case (G4S plc v G4S Trustees Ltd) about whether a defined benefit (DB) scheme which was closed to future accrual, but whose members' benefits continued to be linked to final salary, was a "frozen" scheme for the purposes of the employer debt legislation. The Court has decided that the final salary link did not mean that the members were in pensionable service and, as a result, the scheme was frozen. This is important for employers (and trustees) of closed schemes where the members retain a final salary link.
The Court of Appeal has today handed down judgment in the case of Orexim Trading Limited v Mahavir Port and Terminal Private Limited [2018] EWCA Civ 1660, raising important issues as to the service of claims under s.423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 out of the jurisdiction.
In the recent decision in Carlos Sevilleja Garcia v Marex Financial Limited,1 the Court of Appeal helpfully summarised the justifications for the English law rule against claims for reflective loss and confirmed that the rule applies equally to unsecured creditors of a company as it does to shareholders.
Highlights
Directors may not be able to rely on limitation as a defence to some misfeasance claims, following the Supreme Court's decision in Burnden Holdings (UK) Ltd v Fielding [2018] UKSC 14.
Where directors have obtained an economic benefit from an unlawful distribution they are not entitled to rely on the lapse of time as a defence to any claim brought by the company, held the Supreme Court.