The long awaited Personal Insolvency Bill (the "Bill") was published on Friday, 29 June 2012 and provides for significant changes to the personal insolvency regime in Ireland. However, it does not differ greatly from the general framework for personal insolvency reform published earlier this year. Some key points are as follows:

TheCentral Bank and Credit Institutions (Resolution) Bill 2011 seeks to establish a more permanent and a wider framework for dealing with insolvent banks and banks in financial difficulty. It is intended that the legislation would replace and extend the provisions contained in the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010.

The new Bill was published to meet the end of February deadline set under the terms of the EU-IMF Financial Support Agreement.

The claim against the liquidator was abandoned due to the fact that he was an insolvency practitioner and had no personal responsibility for the present state of the site and there was nothing to suggest that the “liquidator did anything wrong”.  What is involved in the concept of doing nothing wrong is not explained.  Interpreting the risk to liquidators in light of this case and the leading Irish Ispat case (in which a liquidator also escaped clean up costs), liquidators need to carefully consider what actions to take, or not to take, if it transpires that issues arise about unl

The Minister for Justice and Equality has published details of a proposed Personal Insolvency Bill.   It is expected that the Bill itself will be published on 30 April 2012 when further details will then be available. The Minister has invited comment from any interested parties on the General Scheme of the Bill. The proposed Bill would provide for the establishment of an Insolvency Service to incorporate the new non-judicial insolvency arrangements. The new non-judicial debt settlement system would operate subject to certain conditions.  These would include:

In an insolvent winding up, preferential creditors are entitled to be paid first from assets subject to a charge which at the time of creation was floating, regardless of whether the floating charge has crystallised at the commencement of the winding up.

In January 2011, the High Court refused to approve an examiner’s rescue plan (“Scheme of Arrangement”) for construction company McInerney Homes Limited (“McInerney”), on the basis that the Scheme of Arrangement was unfairly prejudicial to the secured creditors consisting of a Banking Syndicate of Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Limited, Bank of Ireland plc and KBC Bank plc (the “Banks”).

Overview

In the recent High Court decision of McInerney Homes Limited, the court has ruled for the first time that proposals for a scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”) entailing payment to a secured creditor of a written down sum in full satisfaction of its debt, could be approved. However, on the facts of the case the court held that the objecting secured creditors would be unfairly prejudiced if they were required to accept the sum proposed to be paid, and, accordingly, refused to approve the Scheme.

On 15 April 2010, the High Court confirmed the appointment of a full-time administrator to Quinn Insurance, Ireland’s second largest insurance company. Though the Quinn Group briefly fought against the proposed administration, it ultimately withdrew its objection and conceded the appointment. The insurance company is now being run by two outside managers, who will run the business as a going concern in an effort to get it back on a secure financial footing.

The intellectual property (IP) rights that protect key software, brands and technical processes can be amongst the most valuable assets of a company. But what happens to IP rights when a company becomes insolvent? What happens to the insolvent company's licences, and to its licensees who may have invested significant amounts of time and money in setting up manufacturing facilities to exploit the licensed technology or in advertising under a particular trade mark?

In the matter of Birchport Limited (under the protection of the Court) and in the matter of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 1990