The new Companies House Register of Overseas Entities (the “OE Register”) became operational and key parts of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (“ECTEA”) came into force on 1 August 2022.

The land registration elements of ECTEA have been deferred and will come into force on 5 September 2022 – this second stage of implementation will with effect from such date have an immediate impact on the registration of property acquisitions and new leases and security being taken over those acquisitions/leases.

The Chancellor announced in his budget that the Crown is to be re-instated as a preferential creditor in insolvency, reversing the changes brought in by The Enterprise Act 2002.

An action has successfully been brought by the administrators of Questway Limited, Oceancrown Limited and Loanwell Limited (all in administration) against Stonegale Limited and Norman Ralph Pelosi (the sole shareholder and director of Stonegale Limited) to reduce alienations of properties in Glasgow, under s.242(1) of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the “Insolvency Act”).

As part of the Scottish Government’s aim of introducing a “Financial Health Service” in Scotland, the Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Act 2014 will this year bring into effect some of the widest reaching changes to the law on personal insolvency seen in the last five years. We set out below a brief guide to the main changes, as follows.

1) Business DAS – introduced in December 2014

Many will be familiar with the words “further advances” and associate this term with typical boiler plate provisions in finance documents.

In a recent case (In the matter of Black Ant Co Ltd (in administration) [2014] EWHC 1161 (Ch)(15 April 2014) the High Court provided useful commentary on the meaning of “further advances” in the context of the priority of security.