The Housing and Planning Act changes what happens to insolvent housing associations, says Séamas Gray in an article for Inside Housing.

Traditionally, when a company becomes insolvent, it enters one of several types of insolvency processes and its assets are typically sold to the highest bidder to raise as much money as possible to distribute to the company’s creditors.

In relation to a housing association, this might well mean a sale outside the regulated sector with the knock-on effect of an immediate reduction in available social housing.

In an article for the LexisNexis ‘On the edge’ series of briefings, which highlight areas of legislation that may not fall with the everyday work of insolvency practitioners, Pat Saini and Séamas Gray offer guidance on immigration law.

Why is immigration law relevant to insolvency practitioners and their staff?

Legislation applicable generally

Facility agreements almost always contain events of default based on a borrower's insolvency. Defining insolvency is therefore key. In this article published in July 2013 we discussed how, following Eurosail¹ , the common law was beginning to move the statutory tests of insolvency towards a more commercial view.

On 25 May 2016, the Insolvency Service published a consultation paper aimed at reforming various aspects of the UK's corporate insolvency regime. It has now collected responses from various interested parties including Dentons. Some proposals focus on the issue of rescue finance, and how to make sure businesses have access to suitable finance to continue to trade out of financial difficulty or achieve a suitable restructuring.

Sultani Decrees

Sultani Decree No. 39/2016

Enacting the Law on the continued validity of the licences of foreign accountancy and audit firms and the exemption of Omani owners of such firms from the full time requirement.

The Law extends the validity of the licences and the exemption up to 31/12/2017 renewable by a decision from the Ministers Council.

Issued on 18 August 2016. Effective from the day after the date of publication.

Sultani Decree No. 40/2016

On 25 May, the Insolvency Service published a consultation paper on options for reform of the UK's corporate insolvency regime. Their impetus is for the UK to remain at the forefront of insolvency best practice to ensure businesses, investors and creditors remain confident that best outcomes can be achieved when faced with financial difficulty, and to give a company the best possible chance to restructure its debts and return to profitability while protecting employees and creditors.

Introduction

14 червня 2016 р. було прийнято новий закон «Про фінансову реструктуризацію» (Закон), який повинен розв’язати багато протиріч та допомогти в проведенні реструктуризації боргів в Україні.

Закон запроваджує нову процедуру реструктуризації фінансової заборгованості українських боржників-юридичних осіб (Реструктуризація).

Особливості нової процедури Реструктуризації:

On 14 June 2016 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law “On Financial Restructuring” (the Law), which aims to solve many conflicts and assist in debt restructurings in Ukraine.

The Law provides a new procedure for restructuring financial debt of Ukrainian corporate debtors (the Restructuring).

Special features of new Restructuring procedure include:

The senior board members (other than Sir Philip Green) are next to face the committees comprising Lord Grabiner, non-executive chairman of Traveta Investments Limited and Traveta Investments (No 2) Limited; Ian Grabiner, CEO of Arcadia; Paul Budge, FD of Arcadia and former BHS board member; Gillian Hague, group financial controller of Arcadia; and Chris Harris, group property director for Arcadia. This group of individuals (other than Lord Grabiner and Ian Grabiner) together with Sir Philip Green comprised the Traveta board’s sub-group responsible for negotiating the sale of BHS.