Arising from the dramatic collapse of what was once one of Britain's most famous high street names, British Home Stores ("BHS"), the claims brought by the liquidators of the BHS group companies (the "BHS Group") against its former directors were already newsworthy.

Introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, the restructuring plans regime set out in Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (Plans) has quickly proven a popular route for corporate financial rescue. This is in large part due to the fact that it allows for a plan to be imposed upon dissenting creditor classes in certain circumstances. This is known as "cross-class cramdown".

Breathing Spaces and Mental Health Crisis Moratoriums (MHCM) were introduced by the Debt Respite Scheme (Breathing Space Moratorium and Mental Health Crisis Moratorium) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020 (the "2020 Regulations").

An analysis of recent statistics show what the Insolvency and Tax Disputes teams at Mishcon de Reya have long experienced – that HMRC is not in the habit of overlooking an outstanding debt.

Amendments to the director disqualification regime, enacted in 2015, enable the Insolvency Service (on the request of a creditor of an insolvent company) to seek a compensatory remedy against a disqualified director for the benefit of the creditor(s). This empowers a creditor to take action where an insolvency officer may be unable, or unwilling, to do so.

This case relates to the principle that creditors with the benefit of a third-party debt order, are ostensibly in a better position than other unsecured creditors of an insolvent estate.

We have identified four judgments from 2022 which are significant for those in the private equity sector and may have particular relevance for sponsors, shareholders, management teams and/or appointees to boards. In this overview we summarise the key points and some of the practical implications.

The decisions we address are:

The Bankruptcy Code confers upon debtors or trustees, as the case may be, the power to avoid certain preferential or fraudulent transfers made to creditors within prescribed guidelines and limitations. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Mexico recently addressed the contours of these powers through a recent decision inU.S. Glove v. Jacobs, Adv. No. 21-1009, (Bankr. D.N.M.

In In re Smith, (B.A.P. 10th Cir., Aug. 18, 2020), the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently joined the majority of circuit courts of appeals in finding that a creditor seeking a judgment of nondischargeability must demonstrate that the injury caused by the prepetition debtor was both willful and malicious under Section 523(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Factual Background

In a recent decision, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York held that claim disallowance issues under Section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code "travel with" the claim, and not with the claimant. Declining to follow a published district court decision from the same federal district, the bankruptcy court found that section 502(d) applies to disallow a transferred claim regardless of whether the transferee acquired its claim through an assignment or an outright sale. See In re Firestar Diamond, 615 B.R. 161 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2020).