Rules 18.15 to 18.38 of the Insolvency Rules 2016 deals with remuneration principles, fixing of remuneration, challenges by creditors and applications to Court by officeholders in relation to their remuneration placing all the rules surrounding remuneration in one place as opposed to dotted around the various procedures in the old rules.

Principles

Rule 18.16 sets out the general principles as to how administrators, liquidators and trustees can be remunerated and is largely unchanged from the old rules.

There are changes to the Act mainly designed to bring in the required changes following the abolition of physical meetings in the first instance.

Approval is now by a creditors decision making procedure namely -

1. Correspondence;
2. Electronic Voting; or
3. Virtual Meeting.

Contents of the Proposal

Any proposal must comply with the general principles set out in rule 8.2I IR2016 -

Creditors' Bankruptcy Petition

The rules for these petitions are contained in 10.6 to 10.33. This section also covers IVA supervisors making a petition. The good news is that under the new Rules, there are very few changes to the current procedure.

As well as the new Insolvency Rules coming into force on 6 April, there are over 100 amendments to the Insolvency Act that will come into force as well. These amendments are provisions from the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 ("SBEEA") and the Deregulation Act 2015 ("DA"), and are designed to facilitate and run alongside the new Rules.

Applications to Set Aside a Statutory Demand

Set Aside Applications were previously governed by rules 6.4 and 6.5. They are now governed by Rules 10.4 and 10.5.

Rule 10.4 - Application to Set Aside Statutory Demand

In summary, Rule 10.4 provides that a debtor may, after having been served with a Statutory Demand, make an application to court to have it set aside.

Budniok v Adjudicator, Insolvency Service [2017] EWHC 368 (Ch)

Chief Registrar Baister overturned the Adjudicator's decision in refusing to grant a Bankruptcy Order where the Debtor's COMI was an issue.

Mr Budniok, a German citizen who had recently moved to London, applied online for a Bankruptcy Order in England. After several requests for further information, the Adjudicator was not satisfied Mr Budniok's centre of main interests ("COMI") was in England and as such refused the application. Mr Budniok appealed.

Registrar Baister overturned the adjudicator's decision in refusing to grant a Bankruptcy Order where the debtors COMI was an issue.

Mr Budniok, a German citizen who had recently moved to London, applied online for a Bankruptcy Order in England. After several requests for further information, the adjudicator was not satisfied Mr Budniok's centre of main interests ("COMI") was in England and as such refused the application. Mr Budniok appealed.

The English Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal that a claim could be pursued in the English courts whilst the defendant was also subject to winding-up proceedings under Icelandic insolvency law.

This case concerns a Court of Appeal hearing following the collapse of the large Icelandic bank, Kaupthing Bank HF ("Kaupthing"), in 2008. Kaupthing was subject to a moratorium order made by the Icelandic courts in 2008 and a winding-up order in November 2010.

Changes to the Insolvency Act 1986 ("Act")

SBEEA 2015 makes a host of supplemental amendments to the Act, the general effect of which is remove references to creditors' meetings and replace them with the alternative decision processes.

As a consequence:

The High Court considers questions relating to the location of three companies' COMIs and an alleged "improper motive" regarding the appointment of administrators