The fortunes of agricultural businesses across the world have always been vulnerable to natural and economic forces such as climate change, world commodity pricing and exchange rate movement. Nowhere is this more evident today than in the current crisis facing the UK dairy farming industry where the unique political and environmental conditions of 2014 have driven milk prices down to some of the lowest levels seen in recent years testing the viability of many of the country’s dairy farmers.

The Supreme Court has held that, where a company had been the victim of wrong-doing by its directors, the directors’ wrong-doing could not be attributed to the company to prevent it (or its liquidators) from bringing claims against the directors. 

Months of anticipation culminated in a successful result for the Liquidators of Bilta (UK) Limited (in liquidation) on 22 April 2015 in a pivotal fraud case, whereby the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed an appeal involving the ‘illegality defence’, in the case of Jetivia SA and another v Bilta (UK) Ltd (in liquidation) and others [2015] UKSC 23.

Protecting your business from your customer’s insolvency

In the second article in our series on risk and opportunity in the fashion retail sector, Rob Russell and Peter Manley assess one of the most prominent areas of risk for suppliers − the insolvency of a trade customer/ retailer.

Heads of Terms’ or ‘Memoranda of Agreement’ (“MoA”) are commonly agreed by parties as a precursor to entering into more substantial agreements.

MoA are often intended by the parties to be broad statement  of commercial intent to enter into a contract, rather than having contractual force themselves. Accordingly, MoA are often drafted with a more relaxed attitude towards their contents

However, no matter what the parties may have intended, a MoA can easily amount to a contract depending on its drafting, exposing the parties to unintended liabilities.

A recent Court of Appeal decision has confirmed that the usual contractual rules, including as to remoteness of damage, apply by analogy to the assessment of compensation under a cross-undertaking in damages in a freezing order. However, there is also room for exceptions, given that there is in fact no contract: Hone and others v Abbey Forwarding Ltd and another[2014] EWCA Civ 711.

Background

Key points

The court has jurisdiction to order the UK Registrar of Companies to replace previously filed administrators' proposals.

The Facts

The administrators of a company filed a statement of proposals with the Registrar but then sought to replace the proposals because they contained information that the company was obliged to keep confidential. The administrators argued that:

Key point

The UK Government has published its response to their July 2013 consultation on restoring transparency and trust in the UK corporate governance regime. There are a number of proposals to widen the scope of the director disqualification regime and make recovery of losses by creditors from responsible directors easier.

The response

Insolvent Defendants

Corporate Insolvency

Dissolution

1. Corporate bodies (limited companies or LLPs) have a separate legal identity that ceases to exist upon dissolution. Dissolution can occur, broadly speaking, in two ways, one is at the end of the process of winding up (whether voluntary or compulsory) and the other is by the process of striking off the Register of Companies 

or limited liability partnerships. The latter occurs either as a result of the company’s