On 8 October the Insolvency Service published a report on pre-pack sales in administrations, together with draft regulations imposing a mandatory referral to independent scrutiny in the case of pre-packaged sales to connected parties.

This article, written by Tim Carter and Helen Martin, considers the background to the proposed regulations, their content and their potential impact.

Background

With two of the UK's biggest cinema chains announcing, within days of each other, significant curbs to their operations due to COVID-19's continued impact on the entertainment sector, our restructuring and insolvency team have looked at the particular challenges faced by these venues and some of the steps their operators and funders should consider to help keep the curtains open.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UK'S ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

Two directors from the UK were disqualified for 12 years each after they used funds from existing clients to payback previous clients. The directors' company entered into loan agreements with existing clients worth around £9.1 million for forex trades, in return for interest and loan repayments. The Insolvency Service later discovered that at least £8.4 million was used to make interest and loan repayments to previous clients.

Perseverance, dear my lord Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

Styles & Wood (In Administration) v GE CIF Trustees (unreported) (County Court at Central London)

On 29 September 2020 the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (Coronavirus) (Extension of the Relevant Period) Regulations 2020 came into force. To keep this snippy, we’ll refer to these new Regulations as “CIGAR”.

Included in this update: Government extends temporary COVID-19 measures in CIGA 2020 and more...

COVID-19

CIGA 2020 extensions in force

On 4 September 2020, the High Court sanctioned a restructuring plan of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited (Virgin) under the new Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006, brought in by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA); this is the first time the court has sanctioned a restructuring plan under the new Part 26A.

Along with tightening social controls, the months ahead will be defined by various critical relationships and the rules that govern them. Of course they all interlock: material change in any of them impacts each of the others. Which causes multiple complexities in decision-making and risk assessment processes, both within a business and when looking at critical suppliers and customers:

Landlords and Tenants:

THE LANDLORD'S POSITION' TO CVAs v PRE-PACKS

There has been much press coverage in recent years on Tenant CVAs and the tempo on these has increased in recent weeks with the approval of CVAs for New Look, Pizza Express and Yo Sushi! amongst others.

The devastating effect of the global COVID-19 pandemic has been felt across the entire leisure and hospitality sector, but nowhere has felt the pain quite as acutely as the UK's night-time economy which, without extended Government support, may struggle to survive. With crowds the new enemy, many venues will remain closed for the foreseeable future and possibly for good.