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
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.
The adviser group 2 session on Monday 23 May comprised Owen Clay, corporate lawyer for Arcadia and Traveta (Linklaters); Steve Denison, auditor of Traveta and its subsidiaries, including BHS (PwC); and Anthony Gutman, ‘informal’ adviser to the Arcadia Group (Goldman Sachs).
The questioning focused on the solvency position of BHS at the time of the acquisition, the level of due diligence undertaken on the eventual acquirer (Retail Acquisitions Ltd) and the recognition of the pensions deficit in the deal negotiation.
Monday 23 May saw the turn of the advisers. This update concentrates on what we will call “adviser group 1” comprising Emma King, the trustees pension lawyer (Eversheds); David Clarke, covenants adviser to the trustees (KPMG); Tony Clare, restructuring pensions adviser to Taveta Investments Limited, the previous owner of BHS (Deloitte); Ian Greenstreet, pension lawyer to Taveta Investments Limited (Nabarro); and Richard Cousins, the independent actuary to the Taveta group (PWC).
This update relates to our Alert dated March 17, 2016.
On February 5, 2016, the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released a memorandum (a “Memo”) related to the appropriate tax treatment of individuals or entities that invest in real estate limited partnerships and limited liability companies (“LLCs”) with non-recourse financing.1 In essence, the Memo determined that, for the taxpayer in question, (i) the existence of a tradi
Help is at hand for insolvency practitioners (IPs) who need clarification on the Regulator’s views on scheme trustee appointments and statutory notices. The Pensions Regulator recently released a statement intended to assist IPs to understand these two areas which are of particular relevance to them.
TRUSTEES
The statement deals with scheme trustee appointments in four areas:
‘Visit England’ promotes tourism to England and Wales by reference to the beautiful scenery, world-class museums and abundance of culture on offer. Following the recent judgment of JSC Bank of Moscow v Kekhman & Ors [2015] EWHC 396 (Ch) (Kekhman), it should consider adding an advantageous personal insolvency regime to this list.
Twin rulings by the District Court for the Southern District of New York, the first of which was issued in December 2014 and the second issued on June 23rd of this year, have created great uncertainty in the bond market regarding whether, when and to what extent Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act (the “TIA”) may now be used by minority bondholders to block out-of-court restructurings, notwithstanding that a particular restructuring is consistent with the provisions of the relevant indenture.