It’s been a difficult last few years for the licensed trade and the hospitality and leisure sector generally, both in terms of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and, more recently, the wider economic challenges facing the industry.

The threat of insolvency looms large and with it comes various regulatory considerations for insolvency practitioners (IPs): firstly, liquor licensing considerations that might arise post-appointment and, secondly, broader health and safety issues that can shift into sharp focus.

Premises licences

Contractor insolvency is continuing to dominate headlines with the recent announcement of the Stewart Milne Group entering administration. By August 2023 as many as 35 construction firms had gone under since June – 29 went under in July alone, six more than in July 2022.

With contractor insolvencies on the rise, we’re providing five essential tips to manage contractor insolvency in construction contracts and to avoid pitfalls. In all circumstances of insolvency, it is important to seek the right legal and commercial advice to avoid making a bad situation worse.

Background

The claimant, Alun Griffiths (Contractors) Limited, sought judgment for £3,316,487.55 to enforce an adjudicator's decision in its favour against Carmarthenshire County Council.

The current economic landscape is presenting challenges for many businesses. Our restructuring and business advisory specialists have provided a list of ten top tips if your business is facing financial distress.

The current economic landscape is presenting challenges for many businesses. Our team at Shepherd and Wedderburn is here to help you navigate those challenges.

Adaptability and resilience have never been more important as many businesses are currently facing ongoing challenges, such as:

With the lifting of the restrictions on the presentation of winding up petitions, and the likely cash flow pressures caused by price inflation, it is widely anticipated that we will see an increase in the number of companies subject to winding up proceedings. For any business dealing with a company in financial distress, a recent decision of the High Court of England and Wales serves as an important reminder that transactions which take place before the company has been wound up can be vulnerable to challenge.

Se ha publicado en el BOE un nuevo Real Decreto-ley (el 25/2020), con medidas urgentes destinadas a preservar el tejido productivo y apoyar la reactivación económica y el empleo.

Destacamos a continuación las principales novedades:

1. Medidas de apoyo a la inversión y a la solvencia

Se aprueba una nueva línea de avales ICO por importe de hasta un máximo de 40.000 millones de euros para

financiar inversiones productivas (a diferencia de las anteriores líneas, que estaban destinadas solucionar

problemas de liquidez).

The Spanish government has announced emergency measures aimed at protecting businesses and supporting economic recovery and employment in the country.

We highlight the main measures in the decree (RDL 25/2020) below:

1. Support for investment and solvency

 State-backed guarantees for new investments

A further €40 billion of guarantees from Spain’s financial agency (ICO) are made available to finance productive

investment (unlike previous guarantees, aimed to be liquidity buffers).

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to the global economy, and the asset management industry is no exception. Fund sponsors have been focusing significant time, efforts and resources supporting their portfolio investments through the crisis.

The Government yesterday tabled the much-anticipated Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill which contains both short term measures aimed at assisting companies struggling with the immediate impact of Covid-19 and significant reforms which are intended “to ensure that the UK’s insolvency regime retains its world-leading position including re-invigorating its rescue culture”. Taken together, these represent arguably the most fundamental shake-up of the United Kingdom’s domestic insolvency regime since the Enterprise Act came into force 17 years ago.

On 30 April 2020 took effect Royal Decree-law 16/2020 of 28 April 2020, which includes a new set of measures within the judicial system to deal with the COVID-19 situation.

We highlight below the main measures adopted below:

1. Procedural measures

• Part of August is made a working month, on an exceptional basis

The 11th to the 31st of August 2020 will be working days for all judicial proceedings. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are excluded except for proceedings for which these are already working days.