Restrictions on the issuing of statutory demands and winding-up petitions are due to come to an end at the end of the month having first been implemented by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) in March 2020.
As of 1 April 2022, the restrictions will cease to apply and creditors will be free once again to issue winding-up petitions against debtors who are unable to pay sums owed.
The case of Re Premier FX Limited (in Liquidation) highlights the potentially dire consequences for a creditor who does not file their proof of debt by a set deadline - and makes clear that mistakenly forgetting to do so is not a sufficient excuse.
Premier FX was in business as a foreign exchange dealer and money transfer agent. Financial advice was sought when it became clear to the (newly appointed) directors that the claims received from customers exceed the balance of the funds held by the company.
In Minor Hotel Group MEA DMCC v Dymant & Anor [2022] EWHC 340 (Ch), is the first reported High Court decision considering a contested moratorium since the new Part A1 moratorium ("moratorium") was introduced in 2020, in which the monitors successfully opposed an application by the parent company's secured creditor to remove the monitors and end the moratorium.
In the first of our short videos in relation to business recovery and resilience, John Alderton (Partner in our Restructuring & Insolvency team), responds to the question:
‘There hasn’t been a wave of insolvencies, is business stress still there or are we through the worst of it?’
Please click here to listen to John’s answer.
A pizza boss has been handed an eight-year director disqualification for failing to maintain adequate records to explain how a £50,000 bounceback loan was used.
Last week this author delved into what has become known as the “Texas Two-Step,” the arguments for and against its permissibility and the broader implications for the bankruptcy system.
R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court [2021] EWHC 3013
The case of Palmer has confirmed that an insolvency practitioner in the role of an administrator can be prosecuted (and therefore personally liable) for a failure to follow correct redundancy procedures prescribed by s194 TULRCA.
Where an individual is found to have acted in breach of s194, they may be personally liable to an unlimited fine (or a fine of up to £5,000 if the offence is committed before 12 March 2015).
The facts
In recent weeks, a move dubbed the “Texas Two-Step” has leaped from coverage first in publications geared only for the professional restructuring community, then to the mainstream press, then to hearings before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, and now to a full-blown trial ongoing in a New Jersey bankruptcy court.
Part 1 of this article considered some of the checks and balances that apply when seeking access to one of the law’s most potent weapons, including the tests the applicant must satisfy, and exceptions that are commonly included in the order made by the court (see ‘Freezing orders: policing the nuclear option (Pt 1)’, NLJ, 7 & 14 January 2022, p15).
This article forms part of our litigation funding series and discusses a key decision that has the potential to significantly support the due diligence efforts of litigation funders in external administration contexts.