Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust and another v. Birmingham City Council [2014] EWHC 2207

Summary

A landlord is liable for business rates where a tenant's lease is disclaimed, even if the landlord does not take possession of the property following a disclaimer.

Background

The Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Group considers the English law position.

Wrongful Trading

The Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Group considers the legal, commercial and practical issues.

Do a deal quickly!

Often it is in the interests of both buyer and seller to negotiate and complete a deal as soon as possible to preserve value in the business before goodwill is tainted with any stigma of insolvency or key employees, suppliers or customers leave the business.

Buy the business not the shares

MiFID 2 package published in OJEU: The text of the recast Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID 2) and its related Regulation (MiFIR) were published in OJEU on 12 June and will come into force on the 20th day following that of their publication. Member States have to transpose MiFID 2 by 3 July 2016 and both it and MiFIR will apply from 3 January 2017.

As bankruptcy practitioners will recall, the Supreme Court held in Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S., 131 S.Ct. 2594, 2620 (2011) that bankruptcy courts, as non-Article III courts, “lack[] the constitutional authority to enter a final judgment on a state law counterclaim that is not resolved in the process of ruling on a creditor’s proof of claim,” even though Congress had classified these types of proceedings as core – and thus authorized federal bankruptcy courts to hear and decide them.

KEY POINTS

CLLS responds on bail-in: CLLS' financial and insolvency law committees have responded to Treasury's consultation on the implementation of bail-in powers. CLLS feels it would have been better for the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 and relevant secondary legislation to have been promulgated only once the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) was final. However, it appears the UK Government does not want to wait until January 2016 to apply bail-in requirements and so is proceeding ahead of the EU timetable.

What you need to know

The entry of the Cape Town Convention into force under Canadian law is a positive step, but has led to a legislative “black hole” in the protection provided to certain aviation creditors, bringing with it considerable uncertainty and potentially expensive ramifications.

The Cape Town Convention in Canada

In 2014, the Chilean Legislature enacted legislation that substantially overhauls its prior insolvency law, liberalizing that law as it pertains to business insolvency cases commenced in Chile. As explained below, this new law incorporates a number of provisions that permit the reorganization of financially troubled businesses.

Law No.  176-V "On Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy" came into effect on 25 March 2014.

The Law "On Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy" (Law) has replaced the Law “On Bankruptcy” dated 21 January 1997. The law applies to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. As with its predecessor, the Law does not apply to state owned entities, pension funds, banks, and insurance companies (for which special provision is made in the relevant legislation). 

As compared with the previous law, the Law focuses more on rehabilitation procedure.