Introduction

Companies are habitually used as part of a corruption scheme. Such companies often have only a single director, or a small number of directors, and are beneficially owned by the wrong-doers.

Insolvency powers can be effective tools to obtain compensation for victims of fraud or corruption, in the right circumstances.

A state could, for example, apply to Court for a liquidator to be appointed over a company used for corruption.

Overview

This article considers the state of the care homes industry, certain issues that arise when dealing with the imminent insolvency of care homes and initial considerations about what to take into account when determining sales strategy.

General concerns

On 29 April 2015 The Insolvency Service of the UK Government published updated insolvency statistics which include a breakdown of insolvencies that occurred in 2014 across various industry sectors including the construction industry.  There are separate tables of statistics for England and Wales and for Scotland.

On 26 March 2015, the Deregulation Bill and the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill received Royal Assent.  These Acts make a number of important changes to the law affecting directors, insolvency law and regulation. 

The changes affect (among other things) directors’ liabilities, the powers of administrators and the rights of creditors. While some changes are relevant to all those advising companies and directors, others are of interest principally to insolvency officeholders.

The trustees of the Olympic Airlines SA Pension and Life Assurance Scheme -v- Olympic Airlines SA

On 29 April 2015, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in relation to the trustees’ appeal. The unanimous decision was in favour of Olympic Airlines SA (the respondent). The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that the High Court was wrong and confirmed that in order for there to be an ‘establishment’ there must be some business dealings with third parties. The trustees’ appeal was therefore dismissed.

Key Point

A distressed debt purchaser may be able to rely on misrepresentations made by the borrower to the original lender in published documents to recover loss.

The Facts

An Irish investment company ("Taberna") claimed damages for misrepresentations made by or on behalf of a large Danish bank ("Roskilde"), in investor presentation documents and annual results, which induced Taberna to enter into a secondary market purchase of subordinated notes originally issued by Roskilde.

The Decision

Key Points

• A company in liquidation will not be stopped, on the basis that it was a party to wrongdoing complained of, from bringing claims against directors and other parties for wrongdoing, where the company can be said to be a victim of the wrongdoing.
• Section 213 Insolvency Act 1986 (fraudulent trading) has extraterritorial effect.

The Facts

Key Point

An "establishment" requires business and business activity to be carried out involving dealings with third parties and not simply acts of internal administration.

Facts

The Insolvency Service has published its insolvency statistics for Q1 2015 which show that personal insolvencies were at the lowest level since Q4 2005.  In the 12 months ending Q1 2015, 1 in 478 adults (just over 0.2% of the adult population) became insolvent.  This was the lowest rate since the 12 months ending Q1 2006.

On 27 April 2015, the English High Court sanctioned a scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”) for the US$200 million 9.5% senior notes due 2015 (the “2015 Notes”) issued by DTEK Finance B.V. (the “Issuer”), a Dutch finance subsidiary of the Ukraine’s largest privately owned energy group (“DTEK”). The Scheme was approved by 91.1% of noteholders.