Solicitors’ Assumption of Responsibility: Miller v Irwin Mitchell LLP [2023] EWCA Civ 53

There was good news for travel solicitors this week, with the Court of Appeal giving judgment for the solicitors in Miller v Irwin Mitchell.

In the recent case of Just Trays Ltd v Emu Products Ltd [2024] EWHC 29 (Ch) (12th January 2024) the High Court was required to consider this type of application. David Garner reports on the case below.

When a company owes a party money, one option open to it might be to issue a winding up petition against the debtor company.

Bankruptcy law has always been an interesting area to practice and study in China. Having nominally a “socialist market economy” as per its Constitution, China allows its private sector to operate relatively freely within regularly re-defined boundaries but has a strong state-owned sector that comprises about half of the entire economy. Adding constant concerns about social stability in the country of 1.4 billion people, the rules for companies going into insolvency must be a careful balance between capitalist “freedom to fail” principles and governmental control over the economy.

As the Maryland legislative session begins to heat up, we have been tracking several bills that would impact financial services providers. One bill of interest is House Bill 254, titled: Commercial Law – Credit Regulation – Predatory Loan Prevention (True Lender Act).

China gehört zu unseren wichtigsten Handelspartnern. Ein großes Handelsvolumen birgt jedoch Risiken. Umso wichtiger ist es, die eigenen Rechte zu kennen.

The insolvency of the SIGNA Group is the largest ever insolvency in Austria with debts reportedly exceeding EUR14 billion.

Recently, the three largest holding companies of the group started debtor in possession restructuring proceedings which allowed management to continue the day-to-day running of the businesses during insolvency proceedings. Due to an error in the timing of the proceedings, the non-operationally active top holding company (SIGNA Holding) was forced to end self-administration.

The timing problem

The UK government has updated the 30-year-old special administration regime for water companies making it possible to rescue water companies.

The new legislation (plus two draft instruments) aims to modernise water company insolvency legislation in the face of the growing challenges in the industry including higher operating costs, claims over sewage pollution and significant debt burden (Thames Water owes £18.3 billion).

New special administration regime

Payments made by a debtor which disadvantage its creditors may be void and if so must be returned. This applies where the debtor and the recipient of the payment knew that the debtor was unable to pay its debts.

Introduction

Throughout the year, we have been keeping you up to date on noteworthy developments across the region with our Regional Round-up Publications. As we enter 2024, we are pleased to share with you our 2023 year-in-review of the Regional Round-up for our Regional Offices in the Rajah & Tann Asia network.

Here’s a due process question that’s percolating before the U.S. Supreme Court and a related mediation issue: