Nearly a third (30%) of South West retailers are at heightened risk of insolvency in the next 12 months, according to research by R3, the insolvency trade body. This is an increase of 5.5 percentage points on the same time last year.
These figures are higher than the cross-sector percentage of businesses in the South West at higher than normal risk (26.5%). However, it is below the UK average insolvency risk for the retail sector (30.8%).
Alan Bennett, Chair of R3 in the South West and Partner at Ashfords LLP, comments:
Restructuring & Insolvency analysis: Connor Pierce, solicitor at Ashfords LLP, examines a High Court judge’s dismissal of an appeal against a deputy registrar’s refusal to set aside a statutory demand made on the appellant, which was based on a personal guarantee he had given the respondent.
Wagner v White [2018] EWHC 2882 (Ch), [2018] All ER (D) 16 (Nov)
What are the practical implications of this case?
The case is a useful authority for statutory demands founded on personal guarantees.
The Facts
Conviviality, the company that owns Bargain Booze, Wine Rack and acts as supplier to Wetherspoons, Slug & Lettuce and many others, entered Administration on 4 April. The company's collapse was sudden and unexpected - as late as 8 March its stock market value was over £550 million, but its share price fell from 301p to 123p in less than 24 hours. This wiped £300 million off the company's value, a drop from which it never recovered.
The Facts
This case is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of failed fintech "unicorn" Ve Interactive ("Ve"), who entered Administration in April 2017. Certain of Ve's creditors made an application to replace its Administrators, from Smith & Williamson LLP, with new Administrators from Deloitte.
The Facts
The latest decision in the Shlosberg saga that has turned the issue of privilege and use of documents on its head - this time considering the practical implications of how office holders can use information they have obtained by compulsion for the purposes of their investigations.
The Facts
The Claimant purchased various rights to action from the Liquidator of a Company. The Deed of Assignment included the right to bring a claim for "alleged illegal dividends and/or transactions at an undervalue" arising out of payments to the Defendant, a director/shareholder, had received. It is important to note that the Deed of Assignment did not grant the right to bring a claim for Preference.
On 2 March Cambridgeshire-based merchant WellGrain went into administration, reportedly owing at least £15m to almost 300 creditors, many of those being farmers.
The administrators' report has now been published and indicates that the unsecured creditors - including some 155 farmers - will expect to receive between 1.4 - 6.7 pence for every pound they are owed.
It is an announcement which will no doubt be met with dismay by those creditors. However, it is not unusual that unsecured creditors of an insolvent company will receive little or no payment.
There are changes to the Act mainly designed to bring in the required changes following the abolition of physical meetings in the first instance.
Approval is now by a creditors decision making procedure namely -
- Correspondence;
- Electronic Voting; or
- Virtual Meeting.
Contents of the Proposal
Any proposal must comply with the general principles set out in rule 8.2I IR2016 -
The Court has recently announced it will be publishing some standard forms for insolvency procedures, to be published under the Insolvency Practice Direction.
The forms are expected to be available towards the end of March.
This is the current list of what will be published. There may be some amendments.
Forms being hosted by Court under Practice Direction (these were identified as forms to "keep" from Schedule 4)
Administration