In a decision to be welcomed by ratepayers, the Court of Appeal in Rossendale Borough Council and others v. Hurstwood Properties (A) Limited and others [2019] EWCA Civ 364 has confirmed that certain types of mitigation schemes are not sufficient to pierce the corporate veil and transfer liability for business rates to the beneficiaries of those schemes.

Liability for business rates

Introduction

The Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Group considers the legal, commercial and practical issues.

Do a deal quickly!

Often it is in the interests of both buyer and seller to negotiate and complete a deal as soon as possible to preserve value in the business before goodwill is tainted with any stigma of insolvency or key employees, suppliers or customers leave the business.

Buy the business not the shares

Several industry associations (ISDA, BBA and FOA – the futures and options association) have responded to a Treasury informal consultation on the need to carve out from English insolvency law the porting of clearing clients’ positions and margin. They agree on the need to ensure certainty around the porting option when a clearing member becomes insolvent. EMIR’s porting option should also apply where the clearing member is acting through back-to-back transactions and holds the client’s margin. The associations note that porting should be subject to agreement.

On December 21, 2011, in the High Court of England & Wales, Norris J handed down his judgment in Re Virtualpurple Professional Services Ltd [2011] EWHC 3487 (Ch), and in doing so he has become the first judge to cast real doubt on the decision of the Chancellor in Minmar (929) Limited v. Khalatschi [2011] EWHC 1159 (Ch). This is a welcome development and should at least begin the process of finally determining the correct formalities for an out-of-court appointment by directors where there is no qualifying floating charge holder.

On 26 July 2010, the Insolvency Service issued proposals for a new type of short-term restructuring moratorium. The moratorium would be available through a court-based process to companies with a viable business and the general support of creditors. The proposed moratorium could have the potential to encourage more companies to view the UK as an attractive jurisdiction for restructuring.

What are the proposals?

The main features are:

FSA has announced a range of measures to help investors who got unsuitable advice or misleading materials relating to Lehman-backed structured products. It has found significant failings and the actions it is taking will apply to all structured products in future:  

What are the principal types of insolvency proceedings?

On 26 June the long-awaited Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 came into force and introduced emergency measures to provide protection to directors of companies which continue to trade notwithstanding the threat of insolvency, and to prevent, where possible, companies entering into insolvency due to COVID-19.

A year after its collapse, Carillion's insolvency continues to haunt both its supply chain and the wider UK construction industry. Many of those left unpaid had spent months chasing Carillion for payment, all the while staving off payment demands from others. Overnight, their debts became unsecured. The flow of cash from Carillion that would have paid its supply chain dried up. A cascade of consequential insolvencies was inevitable.