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 Insolvency Service intends to publish a new guidance notice to address the issues faced by employers in dealing with collective consultation when a company is facing insolvency, following consultation with the industry last year.

The guidance note is expected to require insolvency practitioners to notify the government in advance of collective redundancy proposals and to comply with the requirement to consult when seeking to rescue or wind up a business.

It is no great surprise that following the collapse of Carillion and with other retail businesses teetering on the edge, insolvency and corporate recovery is back in the news.

Some of the biggest casualties of entities like Carillion are the employees. Luckily, in the Carillion failure many jobs have been saved, but there is still a residual cost to employees who have to submit claims to the National Insurance Fund and the liquidator to recover payments for unpaid wages, holiday and sick pay.

Directors of a company in financial distress will often turn to their professional advisors to assist in making decisions about the company’s future; whether that be their lawyers, accountants, bank, tax advisors or insolvency professionals.

Judgment of the Supreme Court, Chamber One, Number 134/2016, 04 March

Supreme Court Judgment dated 10 March 2016 (STS 151/2016)

The judgment of the Supreme Court analyses the objective scope of extension of the liability for obligations and debts for which, as appropriate, the director of a company should be liable and, more specifically, the scope of "the corporate obligations subsequent to the occurrence of the legal ground for dissolution".

A ruling by the Supreme Court in Spain says Spanish banks that held deposits for property that was never built are to be held to account. Around 100,000 people in the UK are thought to have paid big sums towards such properties in Spain but these were lost when several developers went bust in the wake of 2008’s financial crisis. Estimates for how much British buyers could claim are around £4bn.

The Provincial Court of Zaragoza has ruled on an appeal lodged by the General Treasury of Social Security against a Mercantile Court decision approving a liquidation plan that considered the transfer of the insolvent company as a productive unit and exonerated the buyer from social security debts.

The legal issue to consider was whether the magistrate of the Mercantile Court had the power to declare the buyer of an insolvent company exempt from paying the social security debts acquired prior to said transfer, as it did.

ECJ, Sixth Chamber, Judgment of 28 January 2015.

The judgment resolves the prejudicial question submitted by a Mercantile Court concerning the maintenance of workers’ rights in the event of the transfer of companies or part of them, and branches of business.

One of the blocks of Royal Decree-Law 1/2015, dated 27 February (hereinafter, the “RDL”) envisages the implementation of urgent measures  to reduce the financial burden, introducing amendments mainly in the Insolvency Act, in Royal Decree-Law 6/2012, dated 9 March, concerning urgent measures to protect mortgage debtors without resources, and in Law 1/2013, dated 14 May, concerning measures to strengthen the protection of mortgage debtors, the restructuring of debt and low-income lease.