On 25 June 2020, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the “Bill”) received Royal Assent and on 26 June 2020 CIGA came into force. The restructuring team in Mayer Brown’s London office has previously commented on the different elements of the Bill in a series of blog posts and podcasts.
The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill 2020 (the “Bill“) introduces a flexible restructuring compromise or arrangement for companies in financial difficulty (the “Restructuring Plan“). It is proposed that the legislation governing the Restructuring Plan will sit alongside the schemes of arrangement and be included in a new Part 26A to the Companies Act 2006.
The Restructuring Plan will not apply to companies that are solvent with no risk of insolvency; rather it will only apply where two conditions are satisfied:
On 20 May 2020, the UK government announced the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the “Bill”), introducing a mixture of permanent and temporary measures, the latter being in response to the financial challenges companies are facing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. In the absence of extensive consultation with insolvency practitioners and industry experts, it remains to be seen how effective the measures will be in practice.
On May 20, 2020, the UK Government published its much anticipated draft legislation (the Corporate Governance and Insolvency Bill) which aims to provide greater opportunities for company survival and better returns for creditors during and after the COVID-19 emergency. The Government intends to ask Parliament to expedite progress of the Bill.
In Short
The Situation: The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has required governments around the world to provide temporary relief to companies and directors experiencing distress as a consequence of the pandemic.
A court1 has approached the interplay between the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Government's furlough scheme so as to encourage and support the rescue culture and facilitate access to the scheme by administrators. It ruled that:
On March 28, 2020[1], the UK Government announced that it will introduce new legislation extending the UK’s existing restructuring and insolvency laws to include:
In Short
The Situation: Should liquidators be personally liable for the costs of unsuccessful appeals, without an entitlement to reimbursement by the company or its creditors in relation to those costs?
The Conclusion: The general rule providing a liquidator immunity from personal costs orders and entitling a liquidator to be indemnified from the assets of the company for their own costs, and for the costs of the other party, does not apply when a liquidator initiates an unsuccessful appeal.
In Short
The Situation: A liquidator can reject a "double proof" for what is, in substance, the same debt as another accepted proof of debt.
The Question: When are liquidators justified in rejecting what could arguably be a double proof?
The High Court gave its ruling yesterday in the case of Discover (Northampton) Limited and others v Debenhams Retail Limited and others [2019] EWHC 2441 (Ch), rejecting four of the five grounds on which the Applicants disputed the validity of the company's Creditors Voluntary Arrangement ("CVA"), which was approved by creditors in May 2019.