R (on the application of Palmer) (Appellant) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court and another (Respondents) [2023] UKSC 38

On appeal from: [2021] EWHC 3013

Appeals under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) generally result in an automatic stay of the order under appeal—a potentially costly and disruptive outcome. Accordingly, the BIA requires by default that an interested party first seek leave to appeal a lower court decision unless its appeal meets a set of prescribed circumstances that appears broad but, in practice, has been construed very narrowly by the courts (i.e., making it difficult to obtain leave to appeal). In Peakhill Capital Inc. v.

In Short

When individuals are made bankrupt in Scotland, the formal term is 'sequestration', a trustee will be appointed to deal with the sequestration. That trustee will be responsible, amongst other things, for contacting creditors, assessing their claims, ingathering the assets of the debtor and converting them into cash in order to settle the costs of the sequestration and pay dividends to creditors.

Take a look at our summary below of some of the key R&I trends and developments to look out for in 2024.

There were 64 filings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) in 2023, which is an approximately 64% year-over-year increase. While this surge is interesting in and of itself, we believe that the volume of 2023 CCAA filings is also notable for the rich data it makes available to insolvency professionals. We used this opportunity to better understand how the CCAA was being employed by reviewing each filling.

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.

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.