Summary: Customers of a company in administration were entitled, as against a factor, to exercise equitable set-off in respect of entitlements to rebates that had arisen between the customers and the company notwithstanding the assignment of the customer’s debts to the factor.

Bibby Factors Northwest Ltd v HFD Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 1908 (17 December 2015)

Background

Summary: The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee's findings in relation to Kids Company serve as a reminder of the risks of insolvency to large charities. The inherent weaknesses in the demand-led 'self-referral' operating model resulted in little to no reserves, and ultimately led to the trustees being required to file a petition to wind up the charity. Trustees of large charities must always be mindful of reserve levels.

BLP real estate disputes partner Roger Cohen summarises a recent court decision about whether or not a landlord had accepted a lease surrender by the way it handled “jingle mail”, a letter returning the keys, from the administrators of the insolvent tenant. Jingle mail is a tactic used by administrators. The landlord argued successfully that ,on this occasion, the tactic failed.

Finance Bill 2016 includes provisions designed to prevent taxpayers converting profits generated in a company into a capital receipt in the hands of the shareholder(s). Taxpayers may want to consider winding-up their companies or making substantial dividend distributions ahead of 6 April 2016 as a result of these measures and the changes to the taxation of dividends.

Broadly, the intention is that a capital distribution made in the winding-up of a company will be taxed as income if:

Summary

Het aantal faillissementen in Nederland neemt af, maar de retail branche is er deze zomer toch niet zonder kleerscheuren vanaf gekomen: MS Mode, Sluiterij Mitra, Scheer & Foppen en McGregor zijn recent nog failliet verklaard. Bij dergelijke faillissementen zal door de curator altijd gekeken worden naar de (on)mogelijkheid van een doorstart. Een geïnteresserde koper met een goed bod is echter niet genoeg. Om een doorstart van een winkelketen te laten slagen, is vaak van belang dat de (goedlopende) locaties overgenomen kunnen worden.

According to the Court of Appeal, instead of entirely putting an end to bankruptcy operations, the decision to close the bankruptcy case only "suspends the bankruptcy process", while restoring  individual rights to creditors. The appeal judges further indicated that "the bankruptcy regime stops existing, but the debtor remains under the threat of the re-opening of bankruptcy operations, which virtually survive".

Today, 26 November 2015, the Act implementing the European Framework for the Recovery and Resolution of Banks and Investment Firms (the “Implementation Act”) has entered into force. The purpose of the Implementation Act is to implement the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive ("BRRD") into Netherlands law and to facilitate the application of the Single Resolution Mechanism Regulation ("SRM Regulation").

La Cour d'appel de Luxembourg décide que le jugement de clôture de faillite pour insuffisance d'actifs ne met pas un terme aux opérations de faillite, mais en suspend les opérations.

La survie d'une société au terme des opérations de faillite diffère selon l'actif récupéré par le curateur.

Les sociétés commerciales dont les opérations sont clôturées pour insuffisance d'actif restent inscrites au registre de commerce.

Legislation implementing the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive ("BRRD") in Netherlands law and facilitating the application of the EU Single Resolution Mechanism Regulation ("SRM Regulation") was approved by the Upper Chamber of the Netherlands parliament on 10 November 2015 and is expected to enter into force before the end of this year. The new law – the "European Framework for the Recovery and Resolution of Credit Institutions and Investment Firms Implementation Act" – will be referred to below as the "Implementation Act".