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With the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill having received Royal Assent, Penningtons Manches Cooper’s real estate litigation team sets out below an overview of the restrictions now coming into force.

There are restrictions on the service of statutory demands and winding-up petitions where a debtor company is unable to pay sums claimed due to coronavirus, which are due to expire on 31 March 2022.

With the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill (the Bill) now in its final stages, Penningtons Manches Cooper’s real estate litigation team sets out below an overview of the new restrictions that will come into force when the Bill is given Royal Assent.

Current restrictions

It may first be beneficial to review the current moratorium that is in place. The majority of these restrictions expire on 25 March 2022 and the insolvency restrictions expire on 31 March 2022 but, until those dates, the following apply:

End of CIGA restrictions

On 1 October 2021 the temporary changes to corporate insolvency law, brought about by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA) and which seriously curtailed creditors’ ability to present winding-up petitions between 1 March 2020 and 30 September 2021, changed.

The decision raises new questions about whether cross-border insolvency recognition and assistance between mainland China and Hong Kong will be a two-way street.

It’s autumn and time to put that box-set viewing on pause and perhaps instead review the likely direction of travel of the “zombie” army of distressed businesses. How do you avoid contagion?

Unless you hibernated during the various lockdowns you will not have failed to notice that the impact of Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and lockdown measures took their toll on spending, incomes and jobs, tipping the UK economy into recession after negative growth in the first two quarters of 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic posed a significant challenge to the financial health of businesses across the UK. A sector additionally at the mercy of the markets following the easing of lockdown restrictions is the energy industry, with the wholesale price of natural gas (measured on a pence per therm basis) having risen dramatically from around 50p/therm in January 2021 to over 200p/therm during the first few weeks of October 2021.

The Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (the Bill) is, at the time of writing, at second reading stage in the House of Lords and progressing quickly towards becoming law later this year.

A restructuring plan completed earlier this year by Smile Telecoms notches up a number of firsts.

African telecommunications provider Smile Telecoms Holding Limited, incorporated in Mauritius, successfully completed a restructuring plan (the Plan) under Part 26A of the UK Companies Act 2006 at the end of March 2021.

The Plan features a number of novel actions, including:

The Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (the Bill) has received its first and second readings in the House of Commons and is expected to come into law later this year. But what is this Bill and what does it mean for charities?

The Bill introduces important changes to the insolvency and director disqualification regime in England and Wales and will have implications for incorporated charities including charitable companies and charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs), as well as any trading subsidiaries that your charity may have.

Latham & Watkins operates worldwide as a limited liability partnership organized under the laws of the State of Delaware (USA) with affiliated limited liability partnerships conducting the practice in France, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, and the United Kingdom and as an affiliated partnership conducting the practice in Japan. Latham & Watkins operates in South Korea as a Foreign Legal Consultant Office. Latham & Watkins works in cooperation with the Law Office of Salman M. Al-Sudairi in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.