This judgment reinforces the Court’s power to order a judgment debtor to draw down their pension for the benefit of the creditors as recently seen in Bacci v Green.

Summary

The recent judgment handed down by the High Court in Manolete v White [2023] EWHC 567 (Ch) reinforces the Court’s power to order a judgment debtor to exercise a right to draw down on their pension for the benefit of creditors as recently seen in Bacci v Green.

The Facts

Summary

In the recent Court of Appeal decision Bacci v Green [2022] EWCA Civ 1393 the Court, upholding the decision of the High Court, held that a judgment debtor can be ordered to delegate authority to waive valuable tax protection and draw pension where doing so would enable creditors to extract what they were owed.

The Facts

In 2017, Matthew Green, son of established Mayfair art dealer Richard Green, committed fraud in obtaining loans from FundingSecure.

The Supreme Court has been given its first opportunity to “address the existence, scope and engagement of an alleged duty of company directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency”. The corporate restructuring and insolvency community has been waiting for this “momentous” judgment with anticipation for the last 17 months.

The facts of the case:

Imagine that IPs have been appointed as administrators of an aerospace engineering company that operates around the world. The company was financially stressed before the COVID-19 pandemic and then sales dried up. With no reasonable prospect in sight, the directors filed for administration and questions have since been raised about how the directors conducted the company’s affairs shortly before it entered administration.

Introduction and points for consideration by trustees