An analysis of recent statistics show what the Insolvency and Tax Disputes teams at Mishcon de Reya have long experienced – that HMRC is not in the habit of overlooking an outstanding debt.

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.

The Financial Conduct Authority (“the FCA”) issued a Final Notice against London Capital & Finance plc (“LCF”) for contravening regulatory requirements (pursuant to section 205 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“the Act”)). The Final Notice contained a statement censuring LCF for failing to ensure that its financial promotions were fair, clear and not misleading.

On Wednesday 27 September 2023, Mishcon de Reya hosted the first in a new series of Disputes Essentials breakfast seminars, which aim to provide the latest updates and practical insights on essential dispute-related topics.

After a delay of more than a year, an act on preventive restructuring (the "Act") implementing the EU directive on preventive restructuring frameworks finally became effective in the Czech Republic on 23 September 2023. The long-awaited Act introduces a brand-new legal tool preventing the insolvency of viable enterprises in temporary financial distress.

What is preventive restructuring and why use it?

"Bulgaria transposed the Restructuring Directive's prohibition to terminate contracts via ipso facto clauses, but also (deviating from the Directive) prohibited contractual set-off in restructuring, thus rendering the preservation of many contracts performed via contractual set-off / netting of payment meaningless. So, in drafting ipso facto clauses the impossibility to perform contracts in restructuring, due to the contractual set-off prohibition, may be utilised as an additional trigger for termination, now".

NFTs are a hot topic, but their treatment under insolvency law – which will receive more attention due to the recent crisis – has not yet been explored in much detail. This contribution aims to provide a brief overview of the most relevant issues.

NFTs as collateral

Due to their clear structure and organisation, insolvency proceedings are ideally suited for digitalisation processes. It is therefore more than surprising that despite Austria's pioneering role in the digitalisation of the justice system with its Justice 3.0 project, there has been no significant development in the expansion of digitalisation in insolvency proceedings since the early 2000s. The situation is different in Croatia, however, where the new Insolvency Act came into force in 2015 and was used as an opportunity to open the path towards digitisation.

We have identified four judgments from 2022 which are significant for those in the private equity sector and may have particular relevance for sponsors, shareholders, management teams and/or appointees to boards. In this overview we summarise the key points and some of the practical implications.

The decisions we address are: