The Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022 provided tenants in the retail and leisure sectors who had subsisting rent arrears incurred between March 2020 and August 2021 with immunity against enforcement action from landlords. However, that immunity was only for a period of 6 months from March 2022. During that window, either landlord or tenant were able to refer the matter to arbitration if they did not come to a commercial settlement.

The final date for arbitration referrals was 23 September 2022.

When a borrowing company goes into administration, lenders will want to enforce their security immediately. However, administration risk delays lenders from enforcing their security during the moratorium period without leave from the court or consent from the administrator.

This article provides an insight into administration risk, explains ways to mitigate administration risk and how featherweight securities can be effectively used.

The UK Government recently responded to The House of Commons Transport Committee’s Report, titled “UK aviation: reform for take-off”. The Report makes a number of recommendations to address ongoing problems facing the UK aviation sector as it moves towards post-pandemic recovery. Alongside other issues, it raises the idea of reform to the airline insolvency procedure and passenger protections to be addressed by way of an Airline Insolvency Bill.

• Commercial rent arrears continue to accumulate as a result of the pandemic, such that arrears are estimated to reach £9 billion by March 2022 and comprise a much larger slice of the typical debt stack than they did pre-pandemic.
• The UK government has proposed a binding arbitration scheme to help resolve the arrears and further extend the existing protections from enforcement and insolvency procedures that

• Brexit ripped up the rules on automatic cross-border recognition of formal insolvency proceedings and restructuring tools between the UK and the EU.
• Recognition will now depend on a patchwork of domestic legislation, private international law and treaties and may lead to different outcomes depending on the jurisdiction.
• Cross-border recognition is still achievable but involves careful navigation and a more tailored approach in individual cases to selection of the most effective process and its route to recognition.

Legal landscape

The consequent distress in the market is evident with 9 supplier insolvencies in the last few weeks alone, including Avro Energy, Utility Point and People’s Energy.

Today, 1 October 2021, is important as Ofgem is due to increase tariff caps from that date. This is also the date when the restrictions on petitioning for the winding up of companies on the basis of insolvency will be eased.

Legal landscape – energy regulations

In distressed situations, there are a number of issues to navigate, including:

There have been two recent changes to the insolvency laws in England and Wales relating to winding up petitions1 and Part 1A moratoriums.

Winding up petitions – Relaxation of restrictions

The Court at first instance held that the Applicants failed to establish that the Company was insolvent. The key findings that informed the Associate Judge’s conclusions included the following:

• the funds that were available to the Company to pay its debts included funds in an offset account in the name of the director (and an account in the name of the director’s wife); and
• the Applicants’ claims were based on unreconciled accounts of the Company.

The Applicants were granted leave to appeal and appealed the decision of the Court a quo.

In SolarReserve CSP Holdings, LLC v. Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC, C.A. No. 78, 2021 (Del. Aug. 9, 2021), the Delaware Supreme Court recently dismissed a books-and-records appeal as moot and vacated a judgment issued by the Court of Chancery after appellee Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC (Tonopah) emerged from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding as a new limited liability company operating under a new limited liability company agreement.

The Federal Court has clarified the ability of an assignee of a claim by a liquidator pursuant to s 100-5 of the Insolvency Practice Schedule to rely upon information and documents obtained from a public examination in private proceedings relating to the assigned claim: LCM Operations Pty Ltd, in the matter of 316 Group Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) [2021] FCA 324.

Takeaways: