The Court of Appeal has clarified a technical question on the proper operation of Section 245 IA 1986 and the extent to which it might invalidate floating charges taken to secure the supply of goods or services.

Section 245 IA 1986 invalidates floating charges created during the 12 months before insolvency, except (among other matters) to the extent of:

In Re HMV Ecommerce Ltd [2019] EWHC 9(Ch), the directors purported to appoint administrators out-of-court by e-filing the appointment documents at court at 5.54pm on December 28th. The Court’s decision on the validity of the appointment is welcome – but it did not address the underlying problem.

Lehman’s ‘unknown unknowns’, and the secrets that came to light

This article was first published on the Financial Times website on 10 September 2018.

When the administrators and lawyers walked into the Bank Street offices of Lehman Brothers on a sunny Sunday afternoon ten years ago, little did they know the complexity of the task which awaited them.

For all their vast experience, legal knowledge and financial acumen, this was a major challenge.

The High Court has given judgment in a case (G4S plc v G4S Trustees Ltd) about whether a defined benefit (DB) scheme which was closed to future accrual, but whose members' benefits continued to be linked to final salary, was a "frozen" scheme for the purposes of the employer debt legislation. The Court has decided that the final salary link did not mean that the members were in pensionable service and, as a result, the scheme was frozen. This is important for employers (and trustees) of closed schemes where the members retain a final salary link.

Year in Review - United Arab Emirates Law in 2016