Introduction
Hildyard J’s recent sanctioning of the scheme of arrangement proposed by PrimaCom Holding GmbH (‘’PrimaCom’’), a German incorporated company whose creditors were domiciled outside of the UK, has reaffirmed the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the English courts in respect of schemes of arrangement and confirmed their status as a useful instrument for foreign companies looking to restructure1.
The process
Commercial Agreements -v- Commercial Reality: Supreme Court further develops principles of contractual interpretation?
Rainy Sky S.A. and others v Kookmin Bank [2011] UKSC 50
Summary
With the depressing news that more than 20,000 Scots will go bust in 2012, and an average of 25 Scots firms a week will go under this year, it has never been more important to be alert to payment disputes.
Limited liability is not complete protection for directors and they must carefully consider their actions and, indeed, failures to act in order to avoid “piercing the corporate veil”. Directors may be ordered to contribute to the assets of the company even where they have not acted dishonestly.
The UK Supreme Court has recently overturned a much-criticised and controversial ruling of the Court of Appeal by finding an ambiguously worded advance payment bond effective in the case of insolvency. In doing so, it clarified the proper role and application of considerations of business common sense when interpreting commercial contracts. Where a clause is capable of two or more possible interpretations, Rainy Sky SA v Kookmin Bank held that the court should prefer the one which is most consistent with common business sense.
What happens if one party to a contract fails to perform? Can the innocent party get all of its losses back? What happens if the losses are difficult to prove?
Here, we look at what you can claim and how to protect your position.
The general rule
Damages for breach of contract are usually intended to compensate the injured party for its losses arising naturally from the breach or which were within the parties' contemplation when the contract was made.
FSA has published three consultation papers on the Retail Distribution Review (RDR). The papers cover:
Company Insolvencies
One of the criticisms that is often made of the UK’s complex insolvency legislation is that it is too easy for the directors of a company to put it into liquidation or administration, ‘dump’ the company’s debts and then effectively start the same business again under the guise of a new company. Such phoenixism has often been of concern to HMRC both in the civil and criminal fields and prosecutions have been made against directors who have undertaken such activities on a repeated basis.
Personal Liability Notices (‘PLNs’)
Recent remarks by the English High Court in the insolvency case Green (Liquidator of Stealth Construction Limited) -v- Ireland [2011] EWHC 1305 (Ch) suggest that in some circumstances, and at least in the context of fast-moving real property transactions, an exchange of emails may well satisfy the requisite formalities for creation of a binding and enforceable contract.
Sections 216 and 217 of the Insolvency Act impose draconian sanctions on directors of liquidated companies who reuse "prohibited names". Prohibited names are names that are identical to, or "suggest an association with", a company that has gone into liquidation and of which they were previously directors. The sanctions include criminal penalties and personal liability for debts. It has always been difficult for advisers to confidently advise directors whether a proposed name for a new company would be a prohibited name, given the vague nature of the phrase "suggest an association".