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.

Editor’s Note: While we at The Bankruptcy Cave always enjoy writing about new cases or legal developments, we really love using our posts as an opportunity to pass along tips, easily forgotten rules, and things that make the client think you are a rock star (and avoid a client’s distrust in your ability to captain the Chapter 11 ship).

In some good news for commercial vendors, the Supreme Court of Texas recently ruled that payments for ordinary services provided to an insolvent customer are not recoverable as fraudulent transfers, even if the customer turns out to be a “Ponzi scheme” instead of a legitimate business.