Early indications for the construction industry in the upcoming general election, JCT publishes the new Design and Build 2024 contracts, new second staircase requirement for qualifying residential buildings and a recent judgment requiring strict compliance with notice provisions in some building contracts
General election announced for 4 July 2024
Introduction
Today, the UK Supreme Court considered for the first time the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of a company’s directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that although insolvent parties may refer disputes to adjudication, they will have difficulty enforcing adjudication decisions in all but exceptional circumstances
Does the extension of pandemic protections risk creating 'zombie' businesses in the building sector?
The government has extended measures in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA) to protect businesses during the pandemic until 30 September 2021.
The CIGA came into force on 26 June 2020. It introduced new procedures and measures to rescue companies in financial distress as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pandemic protection
The government has extended the restriction on the enforcement of statutory demands until 31 December 2020. The extension from the initial period of 30 September 2020 was introduced by regulations amending the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 and will be of application to those in the construction industry.
The High Court in London gave judgment on Friday, 3 July 2020 on the relative ranking of over $10 billion of subordinated liabilities in the administrations of two entities in the Lehman Brothers group.
The recent decisions in Re MF Global UK Ltd and Re Omni Trustees Ltd give conflicting views as to whether section 236 of the Insolvency Act 1986 has extra-territorial effect. In this article, we look at the reasoning in the two judgments and discuss a possible further argument for extra-territorial effect.
The conflicting rulings on section 236