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 court-fashioned doctrine of "equitable mootness" has frequently been applied to bar appeals of bankruptcy court orders under circumstances where reversal or modification of an order could jeopardize, for example, the implementation of a negotiated chapter 11 plan or related agreements and upset the expectations of third parties who have relied on the order.
Can a liquidator run an unjust enrichment claim to seek to recover PAYE and NIC liabilities from a company’s directors arising from the company’s use of a “disguised remuneration” employee benefit trust (“EBT”) scheme? Based on the findings of ICC Judge Barber in the case of Re Ethos Solutions Ltd, the answer is “no”.
EBTs: Background
To promote the finality and binding effect of confirmed chapter 11 plans, the Bankruptcy Code categorically prohibits any modification of a confirmed plan after it has been "substantially consummated." Stakeholders, however, sometimes attempt to skirt this prohibition by characterizing proposed changes to a substantially consummated chapter 11 plan as some other form of relief, such as modification of the confirmation order or a plan document, or reconsideration of the allowed amount of a claim. The U.S.
It has almost been 12 months since the Administration (Restrictions on Disposal etc to Connected Persons) Regulations 2021 came into force on 30 April 2021. The regulations require an administrator to obtain creditor approval or a report from an independent evaluator in advance of completing a “substantial disposal” of the company’s property to a connected party within the first eight weeks of the administration.
One year ago, we wrote that, unlike in 2019, when the large business bankruptcy landscape was generally shaped by economic, market, and leverage factors, the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the narrative in 2020. The pandemic may not have been responsible for every reversal of corporate fortune in 2020, but it weighed heavily on the scale, particularly for companies in the energy, retail, restaurant, entertainment, health care, travel, and hospitality industries.
In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit made headlines when it ruled that creditors' state law fraudulent transfer claims arising from the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of Tribune Co. ("Tribune") were preempted by the safe harbor for certain securities, commodity, or forward contract payments set forth in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. In that ruling, In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., 946 F.3d 66 (2d Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 209 L. Ed. 2d 568 (U.S. Apr.
On 12 May 2021, the UK Government introduced the snappily titled “Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill”.
The Government has issued a consultation paper regarding statutory audits and financial reporting. The consultation makes proposals in relation to four areas, namely directors, auditors and audit firms, shareholders and the audit regulator.