Key points
- Without notice applications for recognition orders carry the obligation of full and frank disclosure to the English court in relation to the effect such orders may have on third parties.
- Failure to provide full and frank disclosure may have cost consequences.
The facts
Welcome to the third article in this amazing series which looks at what you can do to try to extract money from a stubborn business debtor.
The minefield of surrenders and assignments
A rare High Court decision on an unopposed lease renewal under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 has underlined the importance of robust and thorough expert evidence – and the dangers of getting this wrong.
Recent developments in landlord and tenant law concerning the position of the outgoing tenant’s guarantor on the assignment of the lease can only be described as ‘bonkers’. A few years ago, the Good Harvest and House of Fraser cases confirmed that a parent company could not guarantee both of its subsidiaries on an intra-group assignment. Last month, in the EMI case, the High Court has confirmed that the assignment of a lease to the tenant’s guarantor is similarly void.
Happy anniversary
The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal against a limitation order (providing for the restoration to the register of a dissolved company, C, and the suspension of the limitation period during dissolution) and provided guidance on how judicial discretion should be exercised when making such an order.
Shortly before being placed into administration C entered into a sale and leaseback arrangement. C later went into liquidation; however, the purchase price in respect of the sale was not received before the company was dissolved, over four years later.
KEY POINTS
The High Court has found two former directors of the BHS group of companies liable for wrongful trading and misfeasance under the Insolvency Act 1986 (the Act). Relief against the directors has been ordered in the amount of £18m, with further rulings still to come.
More than a decade after the enactment of chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, issues pertaining to recognition of a foreign debtor’s bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding under chapter 15 have, in large part, shifted from the purely procedural inquiry (such as the foreign debtor’s center of main interests, or “COMI”) to more substantive challenges regarding the limits, if any, that chapter 15 places on U.S. bankruptcy courts. But as demonstrated by the recent ruling in In re Creative Finance Ltd. (In Liquidation), 2016 BL 8825 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2016), U.S.
From 6 April 2016 an application for an individual resident in England and Wales to go bankrupt will be an online procedure (in Northern Ireland, the changes will apply from November 2016). This change was brought about by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.
A debtor will complete an online application to be reviewed by a newly created “Adjudicator”, where previously an application was made in person to the Court. As a result of the changes the court will only be involved in a minority of cases involving an appeal or a post-order application, thus freeing up court time.