The COVID-19 pandemic has placed immense strain across the whole of the economy and raises the issue of how company directors should balance their obligations to shareholders and creditors while ensuring that they protect themselves from any personal liability.

Companies and their directors in the following sectors of the economy face difficult decisions:

On occasion, parties engaged in court proceedings will consider procedural tactics with the ultimate intention of exerting such pressure on their adversaries that their weakened position, or even inability to pursue the proceedings, will work to their advantage. Such a situation arose in (1) Deleclass Shipping Co. Ltd (2) MWI Shipping Services Ltd v Ingosstrakh Insurance Co. Ltd (2018) where the defendant's application for security for costs became very problematic for the claimants.