From 1 November 2022, the Official Receivers' deposit fee to be paid by petitioners initiating a creditor bankruptcy or compulsory liquidation proceeding is to increase. For creditor bankruptcy petitions, the fee will increase from £990 to £1,500 and for compulsory liquidation proceedings it will rise from £1,600 to £2,600. These increases are the first since April 2016 and are reported to have been introduced at least in part due to the relatively low level of recent insolvencies.

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court, in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc., Case No. 16-784, ruled that the “securities safe harbor” under section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 101-1532, does not shield transferees from liability simply because a particular transaction was routed through a financial intermediary—so-called “conduit transactions.”