This article, part of our Creditor’s Rights Toolkit [link] series, serves as an essential guide for vendors navigating the complex landscape of dealing with financially distressed or bankrupt customers. It provides a detailed exploration of the options available to vendors who are proactive and quick to act when they learn of their customer’s financial woes.
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.
Successor liability is a catchall term for a group of legal theories that, in certain circumstances, allow a creditor to recover amounts owed by its obligor from a person or entity who succeeds to the assets or business of that obligor. Typically, claimants cannot pursue successor liability against a purchaser in a bankruptcy sale because most sales are made "free and clear" of such claims under Section 363(f) of the Bankruptcy Code. However, there are some limited exceptions to this general rule.
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.
This guide should not be relied on as a definitive guide to the legislation and should not be relied on as legal advice. The particular circumstances of any situation will need to be considered to determine if the overseas entity is one that is captured by the legislation, if the estate is a qualifying estate, and whether the beneficial owners need to be registered. As a result, this guide is intended only as a high-level overview.
This guide covers the position of property and land situated in England and Wales only.
Can a Company Voluntary Arrangement (“CVA”) complete, but still remain in place and bind creditors?
The simple answer is yes; but it does require (a) the terms of the CVA to be carefully drafted to allow notice of completion to be filed before the end of the CVA term; (b) compliance with the terms of the CVA, and (c) careful consideration of the position of the supervisors, creditors and company.
On 5 April 2022, the UK government published the first review of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (the Rules) (the Report). It is evident from the Report that many respondents took the opportunity to raise issues faced in practice, not just with the Rules, but with the operation of the insolvency legislation in general.
From today (1 April), creditors can present a winding up petition without (a) having to give 21 days to the debtor company to make proposals to pay, and (b) being owed a debt(s) of £10,000. Given that all temporary restrictions and processes have now ended, the ‘gloves are off’ when it comes to debt collection.
Although presenting a winding up petition incurs a hefty court fee, the effect (or even threat) of a winding up petition can elicit a swift payment to avoid the consequences that an outstanding petition can present to a debtor company, including
In Minor Hotel Group MEA DMCC v Dymant & Anor [2022] EWHC 340 (Ch), is the first reported High Court decision considering a contested moratorium since the new Part A1 moratorium ("moratorium") was introduced in 2020, in which the monitors successfully opposed an application by the parent company's secured creditor to remove the monitors and end the moratorium.
In the first of our short videos in relation to business recovery and resilience, John Alderton (Partner in our Restructuring & Insolvency team), responds to the question:
‘There hasn’t been a wave of insolvencies, is business stress still there or are we through the worst of it?’
Please click here to listen to John’s answer.