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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.

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.

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. 

On 11th November 2022, Mr Justice Zacaroli handed down judgment on an application for directions made by the officeholders of ten different energy supply companies (“ESC” or “ESCs”) seeking clarification on issues arising in the insolvencies of the ESCs which had not previously been the subject of judicial consideration.

In terms of quantum, the issues were valued at in excess of a hundred million pounds across the ten insolvencies and potentially many more millions of pounds on other ESC insolvencies not before the court.

以物抵债,指债权人与债务人之间存在金钱债务,双方约定将债务人财产作价交付债权人抵偿债务的行为。实践中,主要分为两种类型,包括当事人双方协商的以物抵债和民事强制执行程序中的以物抵债程序,本文仅就前种以物抵债类型进行探讨。

近年来,随着新冠疫情影响,经济形势发生变化,再加上政策调控等多重因素打击,导致地产行业遭遇寒冬,现金流频繁遭受考验。迫于资金回款压力,为了缓解僵局,地产企业推出“工抵房”“内部房”等房源以期减轻对外负债或实现现金回流。其中,“工抵房”也被称为工程抵款房,是开发商用于给工程方抵扣工程款的一种方式,也是大众所俗称以物抵债的一种常见形式。虽然,工程方的需求是现金而并非房屋,但目前经济形势下,工程方面临开发商无款支付的现实局面,只能无奈被迫接受“工抵房”。尽管“工抵房”的出现使得开发商不再面临房子无路销售的难题,同时解决了部分应付款项;工程方能获得部分“工抵房”以解决工程资金被长期拖欠的难题;购房者可以更低价格买到“工抵房”从而降低购房成本,这一循环链看似多赢,实则隐藏大量法律风险。本文将从“工抵房”的角度,以工抵债权人的视角,对以物抵债的性质、模式、法律风险等维度进行分析,以期对实践和后续研究有所贡献。

一、以物抵债协议的性质

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.