On 15 November 2021, the English Court released its reasoned judgment for the sanction of Amicus Finance Plc's (Amicus) restructuring plan.
Background
Amicus, a short term property lender, entered administration in 2018. The administrators proposed a restructuring plan to compromise creditors' claims, exit the administration and ultimately restore the company as a going concern. The company faced imminent liquidation if the plan was not approved. Secured creditor, Crowdstacker, an online peer-to-peer lending platform, opposed the plan.
The High Court recently decided that a prosecution could be brought against an administrator under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA) in R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court [2021] EWHC 3013.
We discussed the announcement that Bulb Energy Ltd (“Bulb”) was due to be placed into special administration in our previous blog outlining how the rules for energy supply companies work, the supplier of last resort (“SoLR”) regime and what energy supply company special administration entails.
As has been widely reported, the recent energy price volatility (coupled with the price cap limiting suppliers’ ability to pass increased costs on to consumers) has caused a number of energy supply company failures. Yesterday saw the announcement of the collapse of Bulb, one of the UK’s largest energy suppliers, with it being due to be placed into special administration very shortly.
This is the first energy special administration we’ve seen. So how are the insolvency rules different for energy companies? What is a special administration, and why is this the first one?
The High Court recently dismissed a landlord creditor's application to overturn a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) initiated by coffee shop chain Caffé Nero. Here, we recap the key facts of the case and summarise the highlights of the High Court's ruling.
The facts
In November 2020, Caffé Nero – hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic – proposed a CVA to creditors to compromise rent arrears (at 30p in the £1) and reduce future rents for the company's premises.
On 29 October 2021, the UK Insolvency Service published its insolvency statistics for Q3 2021. Notably, the number of company insolvencies was 17% higher than in Q2 2021 and 43% higher than in Q3 2020. This was driven by an increase in company voluntary liquidations (CVLs) to the highest quarterly level for 12 years.
The UK government has lifted the current restrictions on statutory demands but imposed new temporary requirements for winding-up petitions presented from 1 October 2021 until 31 March 2022. The measures aim to protect companies from aggressive creditor enforcement as the economy opens up and other protections are lifted.
New requirements
Further to our blog last week regarding the restrictions on presentation of winding-up petitions being (partially) lifted, the legislation replacing the existing restrictions on presenting winding-up petitions has now been passed and is due to come into force on 29 September 2021.
In a recent judgment, the English court refused to sanction a restructuring plan put forward by oil and gas producer, Hurricane Energy PLC.
Background