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.
Purpose
A continuación vamos a explorar diversos problemas que se plantean a propósito del apartado 9 de la disposición adicional 4.ª de la Ley Concursal, cuando existen garantes personales (o garantes reales por deuda ajena) en un proceso de refinanciación homologable por dicha disposición.
1. El crédito contingente contra el garante que refinancia por la disposición adicional 4.ª
Below we will explore several problems that arise in connection with para. 9 of the 4th Additional Provision ("AP") of the Insolvency Act ("LCon") when there are personal guarantors – or collateral-providers for third party debt – within refinancing arrangement ‘homologation’ (court-sanctioning) proceedings under said 4th AP.
1. Contingent claim against the guarantor who refinances under the 4th AP.
PRIMERA. El dinero de la refinanciación a efectos de los artículos 71 bis, 82.2.11.º y la disposición adicional 4.ª de la Ley Concursal (LCon) es suficiente que se haya suscrito «en el contexto de la refinanciación» y se destine a que el deudor obtenga liquidez, pudiendo ser una financiación simultánea, anterior o posterior al acuerdo, «siempre y cuando esté íntimamente conectado conéste y con la viabilidad de la empresa a corto o medio plazo»(conclusión aprobada por mayoría).
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has just made a pronouncement on three of the most important matters open to interpretation concerning the regime applicable to financial collateral arrangements under Directive 47/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 June 2002.