The long awaited new Scottish Insolvency Rules for Company Voluntary Arrangements and Administration (The Insolvency (Scotland) (Company Voluntary Arrangements and Administration) Rules 2018) were laid in Parliament today. The Rules are a negative SI which means they do not need active approval by Parliament and will automatically come into effect as law unless either the Commons or Lords annuls them within a fixed period after they have been laid. The intention is that they will commence on 6 April 2019.

It’s been reported that the board of directors of AIM-listed Patisserie Holdings plc, which owns the Patisserie Valerie chain of cafés, was not aware for almost a month that HMRC had filed a petition at the High Court of England and Wales to wind up its main trading subsidiary, Stonebeach Limited.

Recently, there have been a number of high profile insolvencies hitting the headlines with a number of High Street retailers entering insolvency either by proposing a company voluntary administration (“CVA”) or via another formal insolvency process. With the recent number of high profile insolvencies there has been scrutiny of directors’ duties not only by media but also at government level.

The new special administration regime for private registered providers introduced by the Housing and Planning Act 2016 was brought into force in England and Wales in July 2018. Should we be seeking to introduce an equivalent regime for Scotland?

The new English regime was developed as a reaction to the events surrounding Cosmopolitan Housing Group which suffered financial difficulties in 2012. It introduces the concept of a housing administrator and critically provides for such an administrator to have two objectives.

The Construction Act 1996 gives a party to a construction contract the right to refer a dispute to adjudication "at any time"; however a recent TCC decision in England has held that this right is not absolute, where the party referring the dispute to adjudication is a company in liquidation and the dispute includes any claim for further sums to be paid to them.

The decision

The Government has approved the drafting of the Courts and Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2018. The Bill is intended to give additional protection to home owners with mortgage difficulties.

The origins of the new Bill lie in the Keeping People in their Homes Bill, a Private Member’s Bill from early 2017. The new Bill will amend the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2013 to deal with circumstances where an insolvency remedy is not available to a borrower pursuant to the 2013 Act.

The Court of Appeal has decided an important question affecting choices around methods of debt enforcement. In ACC Loan Management v Rickard,1 it looked at whether a receiver by way of equitable execution can be appointed to receive future sums to which the debtor may become entitled.

It is fair to say that the insolvency of Carillion has sent shockwaves through the construction industry. While this may be the catalyst for change, insolvency has unfortunately been a risk which has been realised all too often. Looking at the current position, we set out the top ten issues that employers, professionals and the supply chain should consider in the event of main contractor insolvency.

FINANCIAL SERVICES AND BREXIT BRODIES BREXIT GUIDE. www.brodies.com What might Brexit mean for financial services? On 29 March 2017 the UK’s Article 50 Notice was delivered to the European Council in Brussels, triggering the formal process for the UK’s exit from the EU. Immediately following delivery of the notice, the UK Government’s Department for Exiting the European Union issued a White Paper on the Great Repeal Bill (entitled “Legislating for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union”). The paper focuses on the legal changes that will result from the UK’s exit from the EU.

In a recent judgment, the High Court has held that unfair prejudice to an investment fund creditor under a proposed Personal Insolvency Arrangement should be assessed in light of likely investment returns and not the cost of its future capital needs.