In its much-anticipated 2023 Autumn Statement, the UK Government has committed to extending the relief available to the hospitality, retail and leisure sector. It has also announced that a business rates support package worth £4.3 billion will be available to support small businesses and the high street. However, the hospitality sector remains one of the most vulnerable, and it remains to be seen whether this additional support will be enough.

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.

The increasing rates of insolvencies in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) following the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing at a high rate, and England and Wales have seen the highest rates of insolvencies since 2009. Compared with the second quarter of 2022, the total of registered company insolvencies has increased by 13%. Compared with the first quarter of 2023, the rate of insolvencies has increased by 9%.

Businesses are still struggling to recover post-Covid, with corporate insolvency figures continuing to rise. Recent research shows that the most common company insolvency procedure is creditors’ voluntary liquidation (CVL) and in March 2023, there was the highest monthly total of CVLs since January 2019.

The sectors that appear to have been hit the hardest are construction; wholesale and retail; accommodation and food services.

Wilko Limited, known as ‘Wilko’, the well-known retailer specialising in home goods and gardening, is reportedly experiencing significant financial difficulties and is now relying on financial support to keep the business afloat.

Wilko has traded since 1930 as an independent family-run store and has expanded to over 400 stores. Despite this, Wilko has revealed it is experiencing financial difficulties when publishing its annual accounts to Companies House in November 2022.

Cryptoassets are traded on a global basis. Indeed, the markets are even more global and constant than markets in more conventional financial instruments, rivalled only perhaps by the FX markets in their reach.

The Supreme Court recently considered the existence of the “creditor duty” and when this duty arises in the case of BTI v Sequana. The creditor duty is the duty for company directors to consider the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent or is at real risk of insolvency.

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.

Tennis star Boris Becker has recently been found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act 1986 (the Act). This case shows that the Insolvency Service will take similar cases seriously and shows that there are clear consequences for individuals who try to conceal assets in bankruptcy.

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.