Introduction

The proud sporting nations of Ireland and England have for some time traded blows and bragging rights within the Six Nations Tournament as the two pre-eminent and consistent "Home Nations" rugby teams. While the two sides share some similarities in the rebuilding process following the World Cup in France 2023, ahead of this Saturday's clash, few can argue with Ireland's emphatic start to this year's tournament. England, however, can never be written off at Twickenham, so a potential blockbuster awaits!

The Corporate Enforcement Authority recently published its guidance note on EU Directive 2019/1023 known as the "Preventive Restructuring Directive", which you will find here (Information Note).

Background

Facility agreements almost always contain events of default based on a borrower's insolvency. Defining insolvency is therefore key. In this article published in July 2013 we discussed how, following Eurosail¹ , the common law was beginning to move the statutory tests of insolvency towards a more commercial view.

When undergoing a restructuring, a borrower/officeholder's main focus is often the company's lenders. However, there are occasions when HMRC's agreement can be just as key to ensuring any process runs smoothly. In this article, Sonia Jordan and Hayley Çapani discuss some key areas where HMRC's agreement is essential to ensuring a smooth restructuring or insolvency process.

English schemes of arrangement (Schemes) have become a useful and established procedure for restructuring the debts of foreign companies incurred under English law finance documents. For an overview of why they are useful and how they work, see our July 2011 article "Financial restructurings of foreign companies through English schemes of arrangement".

The insolvency of the borrower is a standard event of default in facility agreements. As well as covering the borrower's cash flow insolvency, these clauses also often cover other, earlier signs of distress. Two recent cases have seen lenders try to exploit these outer reaches of their insolvency event of default clauses. Hayley Çapani and Adam Pierce explain why these cases are significant for parties negotiating new deals, and for lenders considering their enforcement options on existing deals.

Negotiations with creditors for rescheduling