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An insolvency practitioner (IP) can pursue a wide range of claims when appointed as the administrator or liquidator of a company. 

These include claims that already existed at the point that the company entered an insolvency process (Pre-existing Company Claims), and ones that arise on insolvency (IP Claims see below).

An IP pursues Pre-existing Company Claims as agent for and in the name of the company, and these types of claims typically include claims for debt, breach of contract, breach of duty or recovery of property.

The Insolvency Service (in reply to a letter from R3) has confirmed that it will be reframing its view of the term "creditor". This follows the cases last year of Pindar and Toogood where the court was asked to consider whether a paid secured creditor should have consented to an administration extension and therefore, in the absence of consent, whether the extensions were valid in both cases, the judges confirmed that the consent of paid secured creditors was not required.

Restructuring Plans (RPs)

2024 was a year of firsts for RPs, and as case law in this area continues to evolve, there is little doubt that this will carry through into 2025.

It would be remiss not to expect to see more RPs in 2025. News of Thames Water's restructuring is "splashed" all over the press and Speciality Steel's plan might see the first "cram up" of creditors, but there seems a long way to go to get creditors onside.

本文结合了笔者承办的2023年度“全国破产经典案例”哈尔滨工大高新技术产业开发股份有限公司等五家公司破产重整案和近年来约50家退市公司重整的理论分析和实践经验,探讨退市公司独有的重整价值、重整路径及实务中的常见争议疑难问题,现采撷文章要点,抛砖引玉供各界同仁研究探讨。

一、引言

2024年4月,国务院出台《关于加强监管防范风险推动资本市场高质量发展的若干意见》,中国证券监督管理委员会出台《关于严格执行退市制度的意见》,证券交易所修订《上海证券交易所股票上市规则》《深圳证券交易所股票上市规则》等业务规则(以下合称“国九条及相关配套文件”)。“国九条及相关配套文件”旨在加强对市场的监管,倡导退市常态化。在2019年以前,每年退市数量几乎都在个位数;自2019年开始,上市公司退市逐渐进入加速状态,2020年退市数量达到20家,2021年退市数量达到23家,2022年退市数量达到50家,2023年退市数量达到46家,2024年度截至9月6日已经退市49家企业。上市公司退市后的出路作为整体性退市制度设计的一环,退市公司破产重整逐渐引发学界和市场的关注。

The below sets out key considerations when dealing with an extension of an administration at the end of the first-year anniversary.

Categorisation of a charge as fixed or floating will have a significant impact on how assets are dealt with on insolvency and creditor outcomes.

Typical fixed charge assets include land, property, shares, plant and machinery, intellectual property such as copyrights, patents and trademarks and goodwill.

Typical floating charge assets include stock and inventory, trade debtors, cash and currency, movable plant and machinery (such as vehicles), and raw materials and other consumable items used by the business.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA has issued a consultation about proposed changes to its Guidance for Insolvency Practitioners. The aim is to clarify existing guidance and provide more information to insolvency practitioners (IPs) on how to deal with regulated firms.

Following our previous alert, in which we highlighted an issue with entries relating to registered security maintained at Companies House being incorrectly updated to indicate that they had in fact been discharged without the aware

Over the past week, reports have emerged about filings that have been made at Companies House marking a charge as satisfied, without the company's or relevant lender's knowledge.

There were rumours last week, which were simply that, because Companies House had not publicly announced any issue, but, as we have seen over the weekend and is now widely reported in the news, it appears that there have been at least 800 erroneous filings.

Monitoring Winding up Petitions

While not an everyday occurrence, a company being issued with a winding up petition is an eventuality that all providers of finance, whether on a secured or unsecured basis, will prepare for.

From a contractual perspective, facility agreements will include specific monitoring information covenants as part of the core relationship housekeeping, supported by a hard backstop of event of default triggers, with rights for debt acceleration, and (if applicable) security enforcement operating in tandem from that point.