The Department for Work and Pensions has issued a consultation paper which seeks to strengthen the powers of TPR in connection with defined benefit pension plans, coming in response to recent corporate failures which had pension plans with significant deficits.
The proposals introduce four new “notifiable events” in addition to those that already exist, the introduction of hefty (potentially unlimited) fines, through the introduction of new civil and criminal penalties and widening the net of those potentially liable for an offence, to include directors.
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.
众所周知，采矿业面临着艰难的局面。在最近几年的市场繁荣时期，矿业公司承担了空前庞大的债务。目前，随着商品价格的下降和再融资来源的枯竭，这些巨额的债务令许多公司步履维艰，严重威胁着它们的生存。
加拿大
若无法与债权人商定业务解决方案，公司应该考虑向债权人寻求破产法项下的保护。在加拿大拥有资产或在加拿大经营业务且债务金额在五百万以上的公司可获得联邦《公司债权人安排法》（简称，“CCAA”）项下的保护。
CCAA允许公司在重组公司事务时暂缓债权人追诉，同时根据某些条件维持对公司经营的控制。公司，特别是未达到五百万债务门槛的公司，还可以考虑联邦《破产法》项下的和解机制。在本文中，我们将讨论CCAA项下的程序。
CCAA项下程序的第一步是获得法院命令，该命令将暂缓债权人在三十日的初始期限内行使其权利，从而允许公司制定重组方案。在获得首个暂缓命令前，公司无需通知债权人，尽管在许多情况下，建议公司通知其债权人。
若公司能够证明其很有可能将提交重组方案，并且延期不会有损于债权人的整体利益，暂缓命令的期限还可以延长。下达暂缓命令时，法院还将任命独立第三方在命令生效期间，监控公司业务及财务事宜。监控人须向法院报告公司的业务行为，但并不管理或指导公司业务。
It is no secret that the mining sector is facing tough times. In recent boom years, mining companies took on unprecedented amounts of debt. Now that commodity prices have dropped and sources of refinancing have dried up, debt obligations have become overwhelming for many companies, posing a serious risk to their survival.
Canada
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has overturned the B.C. Supreme Court decision inKBA Canada1, which was reviewed in the September 2012 issue of Fully Secured.