A recent decision by the Court of Appeal (CA) in West v Ian Finlay & Associates (a firm) will, in the words of one colleague, “add spice to negotiations”.
The CA held that a net contribution clause in a professional appointment was effective in limiting liability. The CA held that the clause was both “crystal clear”, noting that the facts of the case did not permit an alternative interpretation, and fair, that is within the meaning of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 and Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.
In Re Parmeko Holdings Limited the Court had to consider whether to give directions to Administrators where creditors had failed to vote on their proposals. The Court also considered the terms of Administrators’ standard proposals.
In Re Parmeko the proposals provided for the Administrators to:-
- Continue to manage the company’s business and affairs in accordance with the statutory purposes;
- Make payments to secured / preferential creditors;
- Seek one of various exit routes;
And for
Not many people shed a tear for the players when a football club goes into administration. Instead the press always quote how much money the St John’s Ambulance Service loses. The realities are in any football insolvency the creditors (including the players) lose out and the players involved are usually at the lower level clubs.
Not many people shed a tear for the players when a club goes into administration. But the realities are that the creditors lose out and that the players involved in the majority of cases are at the lower level clubs. Out of the 60+ club insolvencies we have been involved in, only one was in the Premier League.
Footballers’ salaries differ wildly. The PFA published a league table in The Mail on Sunday recently stating average weekly earnings for players were as follows:
In Crystal Palace FC v Kavanagh the Court of Appeal has decided that liability for staff dismissed by the administrator before the sale of the club did not pass to the buyer under TUPE.
The changes
Since 29 December 1986, the Insolvency Act 1986, as amended by 23 subsequent statutory instruments, has governed the way in which insolvency practitioners, lawyers, creditors, debtors and others dealing with insolvency issues, have addressed procedures such as bankruptcy, administration, liquidation and voluntary liquidation.
Several blogs ago, I asked whether a party could still argue that the Notified Sum (as defined in the Housing Grants Construction Regeneration Act 1996, as amended by the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 - the Act) was not payable even in the absence of a Pay Less Notice. To continue the theme of Pay Less Notices and their absence, what about the interplay between construction law and insolvency law - in the absence of a Pay Less Notice, and faced with a petition to the court to wind them up, could a party defend itself by saying that the so-called 'debt
With business liquidations and administrations down in Q1 of 2013, what will be the likely effect on claims against insolvency practitioners?
The numbers
The Insolvency Service recently reported that:
In an unusual move the High Court recently wound up a credit union on its own motion. Despite some procedural irregularities with the winding up petition, it was felt that the exceptional facts of this particular case justified the measure.
The case concerned a credit union registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act
The Technology and Construction Court has decided that judgment should not be stayed following a contractor's unsuccessful defence of an adjudication claim brought by its M&E subcontractor.
The case reaffirmed some key principles in assessing whether a stay is justified in adjudication enforcement proceedings: