The Court of Appeal has considered whether interim dividends paid to a shareholder at a time when the company did not have sufficient distributable reserves, making the payments unlawful, could later be reclassified as salary payments.

Facts

The Court of Appeal has given guidance on when the duty of directors to have regard to the interest of creditors arises. This is an important point, as the general statutory duty of a director to promote the success of the company for the benefit of the company's members is expressly subject to the rules on creditors' interests. The court's decision also considers whether a dividend payment can be challenged as a transaction at an undervalue under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986.

Facts

Under article 55 of the Spanish Insolvency Law, it is not allowed after the insolvency order to take individual enforcement action or initiate tax or administrative enforced collection proceedings against the debtor’s property; although until approval of the liquidation plan, administrative enforcement proceedings in which an attachment order has been issued are allowed to continue, together with enforcement actions for employee claims in which the insolvent company's assets have been attached, although certain restrictions apply.

El Tribunal Supremo concluye que la prohibición de ejecuciones una vez abierta la fase de liquidación opera tanto sobre créditos concursales, como sobre los créditos contra la masa, se trate de créditos administrativos o de otros acreedores.

Un deber fiduciario es una obligación de índole legal consistente en velar por los intereses y actuar en beneficio de otra persona.

Delivering on the announcement in the Autumn Budget, HMRC issued its consultation "Protecting your taxes in insolvency" on 26 February 2019. The consultation proposes legislation that will give HMRC the elevated status to secondary preferential creditor in a company's insolvency. If this is implemented, HMRC will have priority to recover certain taxes from insolvent businesses ahead of other creditors from 6 April 2020.

Receivables financiers, lenders taking security assignments over contractual rights, participants in the secondary loan market and others have an interest in:

In a decision to be welcomed by ratepayers, the Court of Appeal in Rossendale Borough Council and others v. Hurstwood Properties (A) Limited and others [2019] EWCA Civ 364 has confirmed that certain types of mitigation schemes are not sufficient to pierce the corporate veil and transfer liability for business rates to the beneficiaries of those schemes.

Liability for business rates

Una sentencia del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (TJUE) avala sustituir una cláusula abusiva de vencimiento anticipado en un préstamo hipotecario por la aplicación del artículo 693.2 de la Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (LEC), según el cual es válido y no abusivo iniciar una ejecución hipotecaria por impago de al menos tres cuotas mensuales.

La Ley Reguladora de los Contratos de Crédito Inmobiliario introduce un nuevo régimen de vencimiento anticipado de préstamos hipotecarios sobre vivienda habitual de personas físicas