Building on the successes of the first three conferences, the Insolvency Service held its "Forward Thinking" conference in April 2025. The organisers invited academics and practitioners to submit papers in advance. From the shortlist, the organisers selected a handful of the authors to present their papers at the conference.

The content of the papers, and the debate generated at the conference, will hopefully help the Insolvency Service in terms of selecting and crafting new legislative initiatives, going forward.

Highlights included:

Two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions demonstrate that the corporate attribution doctrine is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Court approval of a sale process in receivership or Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) proposal proceedings is generally a procedural order and objectors do not have an appeal as of right; they must seek leave and meet a high test in order obtain it. However, in Peakhill Capital Inc. v.

Election of Joe Graham to Partner

Joe Graham was elected partner in the New York office. This year, Joe played a leading role in the chapter 11 cases of Avaya, Benefytt and Diamond Sports. He regularly advises on out-of-court restructurings, bankruptcy litigation and distressed investments. Joe earned his J.D., magna cum laude, and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Kelley Cornish Inducted into “M&A Advisor Hall of Fame”

In R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court [2023] UKSC 38, the Supreme Court has ruled that an administrator appointed under the Insolvency Act 1986 is not an "officer" of the company.

This case considered this issue within the meaning of section 194 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (the TULRCA). As a result of the Supreme Court's decision, administrators will not be exposed to potential criminal liability for failing to notify the Secretary of State of collective redundancies.

Amendments to the director disqualification regime, enacted in 2015, enable the Insolvency Service (on the request of a creditor of an insolvent company) to seek a compensatory remedy against a disqualified director for the benefit of the creditor(s). This empowers a creditor to take action where an insolvency officer may be unable, or unwilling, to do so.

This case relates to the principle that creditors with the benefit of a third-party debt order, are ostensibly in a better position than other unsecured creditors of an insolvent estate.

On April 19, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC that Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is not jurisdictional. The decision requires parties timely to invoke that provision, or else risk forfeiting its protections. The decision also continues the Supreme Court’s trend of interpreting statutes to be non-jurisdictional (and thus waivable or forfeitable) in the absence of a clear congressional statement to the contrary.

Background

On December 5, 2022, in In re Global Cord Blood Corp., 2022 WL 17478530 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2022) (“Global Cord”), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) denied recognition of a proceeding pending in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (the “Cayman Proceeding” and the court, the “Cayman Court”) because it was more like a corporate governance and fraud remediation effort than a collective proceeding for the purpose of dealing with reorganization or liquidation, as Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code requires.