With effect from December 1, 2020, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs ("HMRC") ranks ahead of floating charge holders and unsecured creditors with respect to recovering certain pre-insolvency taxes from an insolvent business ("Crown preference"). Directors can also now incur personal liability for the unpaid taxes of an insolvent company where they are involved in tax avoidance, evasion, or phoenixism.
At 11pm on 31 December 2020, the UK left the European single market at the end of the transition period agreed as part of the 2019 Withdrawal Agreement. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement that was reached on Christmas Eve made no provision for continued recognition of, or co-operation in, insolvency and restructuring proceedings. This briefing considers the implications of this and we examine how:
The challenges facing the businesses of the United Kingdom at the start of 2021 are perhaps greater than any of us have seen in our lifetimes. In addition to the economic consequences of the restrictions on daily life imposed to counter Covid-19, we are now seeing the effects of the exit of the UK from the EU with businesses having had little time to get up to speed on the new regime.
As always, there has been a lot going on in insolvency. We have highlighted below a few of the more important developments that we have seen in a very busy 2020 for insolvency lawyers.
Re Tokenhouse VB Ltd (Formerly VAT Bridge 7 Ltd) [2020] EWHC 3171 (Ch)
2020 was a difficult and uncertain year, with unprecedented challenges across the globe, changing the world as we know it. At the start of 2021, the country remained in lockdown and Brexit materialised - with a deal - posing a further seismic shift. It remains unclear what the full effect of either will be on the economy. On the plus side, the active vaccination programme may offer us a route out of the pandemic. But one thing is clear, lawyers are resilient and our flexible fee structures and case funding options prove more important than ever. We are here, ready to help.
In any economic downturn, there is usually an increase in the number of demands made throughout supply chains and in particular by owners / employers on project securities (e.g. for performance issues, upon termination or following insolvency) and the recent global economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic is no different.
The new National Security and Investment Bill, which aims to provide the Government with the necessary powers to scrutinise and intervene in business transactions to protect national security, will introduce a mandatory notification regime across 17 sectors in the UK economy. Although the Bill provides a carve-out for rights exercisable by administrators, insolvency practitioners will still need to be mindful of the risks that the Bill may have on distressed M&A transactions, which may be rendered void if captured by the regime and the notification requirements not complied with.
In Uralkali v Rowley and another [2020] EWHC 3442 (Ch) – a UK High Court case relating to the administration of a Formula 1 racing team – an unsuccessful bidder for the company's business and assets sued the administrators, arguing that the bid process had been negligently misrepresented and conducted.
The court found that the administrators did not owe a duty of care to the disappointed bidder. It rejected the claimant's criticisms of the company’s sale process and determined that the administrators had conducted it "fairly and properly" and were not, in fact, negligent.
On 29 January 2020, the Insolvency Service published its quarterly insolvency statistics for October to December 2020 (Q3 2020).