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.

Two recent cases out of the Third Circuit and the Southern District of New York highlight some of the developing formulas US courts are using when engaging with foreign debtors. In a case out of the Third Circuit, Vertivv. Wayne Burt, the court expanded on factors to be considered when deciding whether international comity requires the dismissal of US civil claims that impact foreign insolvency proceedings.

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.

Changes are afoot to the statutory regime governing special administrations for regulated water companies (the SAR) following the publication of a suite of new legislation.

Impact of the changes on pension trustees

When a majority of a company’s board approves a tender offer in good faith, can it still be avoided as an actually fraudulent transfer? Yes, says the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, holding that the fraudulent intent of a corporation’s CEO who was a board member and exercised control over the board can be imputed to the corporation, even if he was the sole actor with fraudulent intent.

Background

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.

A thorny question facing a company when considering a Restructuring Plan is how to deal with HMRC particularly following HMRC’s opposition to recent plans.

Creditors now have some assistance in these deliberations thanks toguidance published by HMRC setting out how they will approach discussions with companies considering a Restructuring Plan.