As outlined in our previous briefing note on the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, a new restructuring tool was introduced in June 2020 in the form of the Part A1 free-standing moratorium (the "Moratorium").
Welcome to the sixth edition of our quarterly disputes newsletter, which covers key developments in the dispute resolution world over the last three months or so.
The High Court has dismissed a challenge to Caffe Nero's company voluntary arrangement (CVA) in Young v Nero Holdings Limited. The Applicant in the proceedings, Mr Young, was a landlord of premises let to the First Respondent, Nero Holdings Limited (the Company) and challenged the Company's CVA under s 6(1)(a) and (b) of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the Act).
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation was introduced during 2020 to prevent creditors filing statutory demands and winding up petitions on the basis of their debtor's inability to pay its debts, unless it could be shown that non-payment was not a result of the pandemic. These temporary measures had been extended a number of times during the pandemic as businesses continued to suffer the effects of multiple lockdowns and trading restrictions, but are now gradually being phased out.
The UK Government has announced a further extension to certain protective measures for businesses which are currently in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, the UK Government has put legislative measures in place to protect commercial tenants by preventing landlords from using certain remedies such as forfeiture and winding up petitions. However, the legislation does not specifically prevent a landlord from issuing debt claims against its tenants for arrears of rent and other amounts due under a lease (see the recent case of Commerz Real Investmentgesellschaft mbh v TFS Stores Limited [2021] EWHC 863 (Ch)).
Unless the Article 50 period is extended yet again, the UK is currently set to leave the EU on 31 October 2019 at 11pm GMT. However, if the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified, the impact of Brexit will, for most purposes, be postponed due to the transition period. This transition period is currently set to end on 31 December 2020. The Withdrawal Agreement provides that during transition, the UK would continue to be treated as if it were still an EU member for the purposes of a range of directly application EU legislation which is core to the smooth running of financial transactions.
This page was updated on 8 January 2021.
From 1 December 2020 new changes to the priority rules in insolvency will have a real impact on the recoveries achieved by secured creditors on the insolvency of a debtor. These new rules give HMRC priority above floating charge holders and ordinary unsecured creditors in relation to tax collected by an insolvent company from third parties, such as VAT, PAYE income tax and NICs.