New rules in the UK allow Companies House to share non-public information with insolvency officeholders and the Official Receiver.

While in many cases there may be limited non-public information available from Companies House that will be useful to insolvency officeholders, this is another tool available to deploy in appropriate cases. It is specifically envisaged to assist officeholders pursuing claims for fraudulent and wrongful trading, transactions at an undervalue and preferences.

This briefing first appeared in the June 2020 edition of South Square Digest.

Executive Summary

In February 2020 the British Virgin Islands Commercial Court (the "BVI Court") sanctioned a creditor scheme of arrangement, which was part of a much larger cross boarder restructuring. This scheme of arrangement, which as a creditor scheme was itself rare for the BVI, was preceded by the BVI's first ever "soft touch" provisional liquidation (in linked proceedings), which commenced in December 2018.