In a written statement this morning from Lord Faulks QC, Minister of State for Civil Justice, the government has announced that, from April 2016, insolvency litigation will no longer be exempt from what have been abbreviated to “the LASPO reforms”.

Regular readers of my blogs over the years will know that I never pass up a chance to use a musical analogy for business problems. As an insolvency lawyer with a second calling treading the boards, my legal practice and my music frequently vie for my attention: never more so than during the Christmas season.

INTRODUCTION

The Royal Court of Guernsey has taken the welcome step of dedicating specific court time to company and insolvency matters.

THE PRACTICE DIRECTION

I am often asked “what do you do”? If I reply “a regulatory solicitor”, this inevitably elicits a blank expression from the enquirer (be that a non-lawyer or lawyer), so I go on to the more long-winded version, that I am a criminal solicitor who advises business owners and other stakeholders on how to stay on the right side of the criminal law, and defends them when they get it wrong.

In an important judgment published last week, the Royal Court of Jersey has provided guidance to trustees and other holders of fiduciary powers in relation to the exercise of powers when a trust is considered to be “insolvent”. Counsel in the case was unable to find any relevant authority on this subject in any other trusts jurisdiction, so this may well be one of the first cases to deal with this issue.

It was far from a secret that a veritable smorgasbord of phased changes to insolvency law were coming in on 1 October. The legal and insolvency press has been riddled with it, and frankly the flavours were all a bit predictable. The commentators falling over themselves to ask mundane questions such as “are you ready for…?” and “what will happen now…?” are really just asking “we are really up to date on the new law, aren’t we brilliant?”; of course you are, but you’re not getting any marks for originality.

british virgin islands cayman islands guernsey jersey cape town london www.careyolsen.com 1 bvi litigation & insolvency client update - SEPTEMBER 2015 Dispute Resolution & Litigation | Restructuring & Insolvency British Virgin Islands Welcome to our September BVI litigation and insolvency bulletin, co-authored by Ben Mays, Andrew Chissick and Jevaughn Rhymer. This edition of the bulletin contains reports on four recent cases: • Privy Council authority concerning a contested, Court-run auction of a property arising in the liquidation of a well-known luxury Caribbean resort.

The news in January of this year that the government planned to increase the bankruptcy petition threshold to £5,000 (subject to parliamentary scrutiny) from 1 October was greeted with mixed reaction. On the one hand, it was welcomed in that the threshold of £750 which had been in place since 1986 was wildly out of date.

The Royal Court of Guernsey has issued a Practice Direction pertaining to the information required when applying for the appointment of an administrator or liquidator in Guernsey.

The Practice Direction

Over the past 15 years or so, one of the most commonly recurring themes in my practice has been advising both insolvency practitioners and directors on the prospects of legal proceedings being pursued for breach of director duties and/or wrongful trading. Very often the two claims are put together for the purposes of an actual or threatened claim, and very often sitting behind the scenes as well is a possible investigation and/or claim that one or more directors should be disqualified.