A recent TCC decision highlights the dangers of withholding payment against contractors with a view to pushing them into insolvency. The court allowed the recovery of insolvency professional fees as well as a substantial sum reflecting a reduced settlement reached with a third party on a separate project. The court’s decision has ramifications for any party seeking to withhold large payments under a construction contract against a party who is likely to suffer serious cash-flow pressure as a result.

A recent TCC decision has ruled that adjudication proceedings cannot be brought by companies in liquidation in relation to financial claims under a construction contract. The decision will have considerable ramifications for the practical management of liquidations for companies with exposure to construction contracts. The decision would appear to run contrary to current liquidator practice, both as to the use of adjudication proceedings in liquidations and as to the assignment of claims to third parties, but essentially only confirms the mandatory nature of insolvency set-off.

The High Court has given guidance on the principles that insolvency officeholders should apply when deciding whether or not to assign a claim in LF2 Ltd v Supperstone [2018] EWHC 1776

This guidance does not create a binding precedent but does set out a helpful framework within which insolvency officeholders can consider a proposed assignment of a cause of action.

Assignments of claims by insolvency officeholders

It is generally the case (though not always!) that courts are reluctant to enforce monetary award adjudication decisions in favour of companies in liquidation (CILs). This is because of the uncertainty surrounding the CIL’s ability to repay those sums should it later transpire it was not entitled to the award.

In an urgent application, the Court of Appeal held that a CVA should be precluded from becoming effective where an unanticipated claim of €126.7m was submitted after the CVA was approved but before the statutory bar on new claims had lapsed.

From time to time the statutory rights available to parties to construction contracts appears to come into conflict with other sets of provisions that also claim to govern the same areas of dispute. Perhaps the best known such clash, between adjudication and the effect of insolvency, was that explored in the Scottish case of Melville Dundas Limited (in Receivership) v George Wimpey UK Limited[1] in 2007.

The recent decision of the London Commercial Court in PJSC Tatneft v Gennady Bogolyubov & Ors [2018] EWHC 1314 (Comm) highlights the importance that the Court will attach to full asset disclosure by a respondent to ensure the effectiveness of a freezing order, even in circumstances where the value of a respondent’s assets exceeds the sum frozen by the order.

Freezing Orders: What Are They?

The Facts

Mr Tailby and Mr Courtman were appointed Administrators over three connected companies: TPS Investments (UK) Ltd; ABC Prop Co Holdings Ltd and CP Investment Holdings Limited. TPS was a property developer and owned a number of properties; two of these were transferred to ABC and one to CP.

The UK Supreme Court recently handed down judgment in Pimlico Plumbers v Smith1, the latest decision on the hot topic of employment status in the “gig economy”, following the Deliveroo and CitySprint cases in 2017. The court dismissed Pimlico's appeal, holding that the employment tribunal was entitled to find that Mr Smith, who was engaged under a contract describing him as a self-employed plumber, was in fact a worker. He may now proceed with claims of disability discrimination and for unlawful deductions and holiday pay.

Conflicts of interest on the part of Administrators and the Court’s powers to grant remedial relief by appointing so-called “conflicts” administrators have become real hot topics in insolvency litigation, in particular following the decisions this year in VE Vegas Investors IV LLC and Davey v Money.