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.
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.
In a decision delivered on 7 June 2024 (2024TALCH02/00950) (the Decision), the Luxembourg District Court provided for substantive clarifications regarding article 10 of the Luxembourg Law of 7 August 2023 on the continuation of businesses and modernisation of insolvency law (the Restructuring Law). This article empowers the Court to appoint judicial agents (mandataires de justice) in case of serious and aggravated misconduct (manquements graves et caractérisés) by the debtor or its corporate bodies, threatening the continuity of 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.
Snippet series
What is the impact on the double Luxco and the Luxembourg share pledges?
Luxembourg bolsters its position for the structurings of international investments with the introduction of new tools for bankruptcy prevention. The existing and new financial collateral arrangements maintain their bankruptcy insolvency proceedings remote status, preserving the benefit and popularity of the double Luxco structure and the related enforcement of Luxembourg share security.
Beware of Demand Letters
An immediate concern for any company is a threat to present a winding up petition made in an email or letter – regardless of the size of debt, whether the debt is disputed or the company has a counterclaim.
The consequences of ignoring such a threat can have an immediate and adverse impact on a business. Failure to respond can be used as evidence that the company is unable to pay and that can be used as evidence to support presentation of a winding up petition.